CHRONICLES 

OF 

PENNSYLVANIA 


FROM   THE 


ENGLISH  REVOLUTION 

TO   THE 

PEACE  OF  AIX-LA-CHAPELLE 

1688-1748 


BY 

CHARLES  P.  KEITH 

author  of 

"The  Provincial  Councillors  of  Pennsylvania  1733-1776" 

and  "The  Ancestry  of  Benjamin  Harrison" 


In  Two  Volumes 


Vol.  I 


PHILADELPHIA 

1917 


Copyright  1917 

By 

CHARLES  P.  KEITH 


Patterson  &  White  Co. 

printers  and  publishers 

Philadelphia,  Pa. 


F 

V.I 


TO 

MY  WIFE 


T  rr>^  a  i 
SANTA  BARBARA 


PREFACE 

The  settlement  of  the  banks  of  the  Delaware  by 
Dutch,  Swedes,  and  Quakers  has  been  sufficiently 
minuted  not  only  in  printed  records,  but  in  histories 
which  are  accessible.  Similarly  those  events  of  the 
struggle  for  British  supremacy  and  of  the  straggle  for 
American  independence  which  took  place  within  the 
present  boundaries  of  Pennsylvania  are  too  well  known 
to  require  fresh  narration.  As  to  the  long  period  not 
covered  by  these  subjects,  not  only  data  as  to  local  de- 
velopment, but  much  information  as  to  general  affairs 
will  be  found  in  volumes  devoting  most  space  to  earlier 
or  later  times.  But  for  the  valuable  contribution  made 
by  such,  there  would  be  little  knowledge  of  men  and 
things  between  the  arrival  of  the  last  shipload  of 
Quakers  and  the  first  steps  in  the  French  and  Indian 
war.  The  standard  works  on  Pennsylvania  in  the 
XVIIth  andXVIIIth  Centuries  may  be  described  as  a 
panegyric  upon  William  Penn,  the  Acta  as  a  wonder- 
worker of  Benjamin  Franklin,  or  an  epic  about  George 
Washington.  Much  matter,  less  vivid,  but  worthy  of 
observation,  even  any  mention  of  certain  years,  is 
omitted.  The  complete  story  of  successive  administra- 
tions and  their  achievements  or  failures,  of  antagonistic 
religions,  alien  immigrations,  relations  with  aborigines, 
and  the  legislature 's  adherence,  under  repeated  tempta- 
tion, to  the  principle  of  not  engaging  in  war,  is,  in  con- 
sequence, to  be  hunted  widely  in  monographs,  published 
correspondence,  and  parts  of  a  number  of  books,  many 
on  special  lines. 

V 

0 


vi  Preface. 

A  comprehensive  chronicle  of  the  most  neglected 
period  is  attempted  to  be  supplied  in  these  volumes,  de- 
tailing what  took  place  in  each  year,  but  sometimes  pur- 
suing a  topic  beyond  the  year  in  question,  when  the 
bringing  in  of  other  subjects  would  have  been  bewilder- 
ing. Not  to  include  what  other  writers  have  well 
covered,  two  dates  memorable  in  a  large  part  of  the 
world  have  been  chosen,  that  of  the  English  Revolution, 
for  the  starting-point,  as  not  requiring  further  details 
of  the  founding  of  the  colony  than  are  necessary  to  ex- 
plain later  conditions,  and  the  date  of  the  treaty  of  Aix- 
la-Chapelle,  for  closing  the  record,  so  as  to  shut  out  the 
contention  for  the  Ohio,  which  was  consequent  upon 
that  treaty.  It  has  been  necessary  sometimes  to  over- 
step these  limits  in  order  to  treat  completely  a  minor 
subject  which  was  important  or  noticeable  during  the 
course  of  the  sixty  years ;  and  the  opportunity  given  in 
a  book  on  Pennsylvania  history  has  been  used  to  correct 
misappreheijsions  as  to  matters  not  chronologically 
within  its  theme. 

Much  of  what,  in  histories,  addresses,  or  editorial 
notes,  has  been  published  relating  to  those  who  con- 
trolled or  inhabited  Pennsylvania,  has  been  inspired  by 
bitter  partisanship  or,  at  least,  strong  predilection.  As 
the  establishment  of  the  colony  has  been  the  just  pride 
of  the  Quakers,  and  as  the  original  sources  of  infor- 
mation most  accessible  here  until  recently  have  been 
the  manuscripts  coming  from  the  governing  family  and 
faction,  the  predilection  has  been  usually  for  the  side 
of  William  Penn,  if  not  of  the  Proprietaries  in  general ; 
but  in  opposition  the  Historical  Revieiv  of  the  Consti- 
tution and  Government  of  Pennsylvania,  voicing  the 


Preface.  vii 

opinions  held  by  Franklin,  and  the  History  written  by- 
Thomas  F.  Gordon  are  conspicuous.  It  is  not  easy 
even  for  the  investigator,  delving  beneath  the  radical 
and  bitter  expressions,  to  find  out  what  was  justice  in 
the  contentions,  or  what  was  true  as  to  the  conduct, 
much  less  as  to  the  motives,  of  individuals.  So  strong 
was  the  disposition  of  the  men  active  in  the  politics  or 
religion  of  Pennsylvania  at  that  time  to  believe  any- 
thing against  their  real  or  supposed  adversaries  that 
even  such  evidence  as  a  contemporary  letter  can  not 
always  be  depended  upon.  With  no  purpose  of  making 
an  arraignment  against  venerated  personages,  but 
ready  to  find  a  plea  for  the  poorer  in  estate,  the  fol- 
lowers of  a  different  ecclesiastical  use,  and  others  an- 
imadverted upon,  I  have  said  some  things  which  will 
displease,  but  I  have  tried  to  be  impartial,  and  to  make 
allowances  for  all  parties  in  the  clashing  of  interests 
and  consciences.  Investigation  has  led  me  to  different 
conclusions  from  those  prevalent  in  this  part  of  the 
country,  and  formerly  accepted  by  myself.  I  trust  that 
no  expressions,  however,  will  be  thought  to  indicate 
want  of  respect  for  the  truly  religious  members  of  the 
Society  of  Friends,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  everybody 
living  at  the  present  time  ought  to  wish  the  world  con- 
verted to  the  "peaceable  persuasion"  of  the  majority 
of  the  Assembly  of  Pennsylvania  from  1688  to  1748. 

It  has  been  impracticable  to  cite  authorities  for  every 
statement,  and  it  has  been  undertaken  only  for  such  as 
may  cause  surprise.  If  the  reader  wishes  to  decide  for 
himself  the  truth  of  any,  and  there  is  no  closely  preced- 
ing or  following  reference  which  happens  to  cover,  he 
will  probably  find  the  fact  mentioned  in  what  is  the  best 


viii  Preface. 

evidence,  viz:  the  printed  Votes  of  the  Assembly,  the 
printed  minutes  of  our  Provincial  or  Governor's  Coun- 
cil (called  the  Colonial  Records),  the  printed  Pennsyl- 
vania Archives,  the  copied  minutes  and  documents  of 
the  Lords  for  Trade  and  Plantations,  the  printed  ab- 
stracts of  English  State  Papers,  the  Papers  of  the 
House  of  Lords  published  by  the  Historical  Manuscripts 
Commission,  and  the  copies  of  deeds  &ct.  in  the  public 
offices  in  Philadelphia.  As  to  what,  not  of  public  rec- 
ord, William  Penn  or  his  representatives  did,  we  have 
their  own  written  words,  published  in  the  Penn  and 
Logan  Correspondence,  or  preserved  among  the  letters 
and  papers  in  the  care  of  the  Historical  Society  of 
Pennsylvania;  and  the  same  repository  holds  for  the 
student's  inspection  the  correspondence,  apparently 
complete,  between  the  later  Penns  and  their  deputies. 

It  has  seemed  better  to  give  all  the  dates  as  they  ap- 
pear in  the  original  authorities,  and,  if  alternative, 
then  in  Old  Style,  and,  as  the  difference  from  the  New 
Style  is  not  always  understood,  to  devote  a  page  or  so 
in  the  first  chapter  to  explanation.  Perhaps  it  is  only 
fair  to  my  printers  to  add  that  the  spelling,  punctua- 
tion, &ct.  are  my  own  except  usually  where  I  am  quot- 
ing, or,  as  to  Indian  names,  spelling  according  to  the 
record.  I  have  undertaken  to  begin  with  a  capital,  not 
only  titles,  but  such  words  as  People,  Province,  &ct., 
when  meaning  the  political  body,  and  also  Province, 
when  meaning  Pennsylvania  proper  without  including 
Delaware ;  and  I  have  placed  £  before  a  sum  in  sterling 
and  I.  after  a  sum  in  provincial  currency. 

Charles  P.  Keith. 
321  S.  Fourth  St.,  Philadelphia, 
November,  1916. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  I 


CHAPTER  I. 

National  Advance  and  Royal  Charters 1 

CHAPTER  II. 

The  Ascertainment  of  the  Southern  Boundary  .     30 

CHAPTER  III. 

The  Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the  Land  .     60 

CHAPTER  IV. 
The  Red  Neighbours  90 

CHAPTER  V. 

The  People 123 

CHAPTER  VI. 
A  Republican  Feudatory 153 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Government  under  the  Frame  of  1683 182 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Religious  Dissension   210 

CHAPTER  IX. 
England 243 

CHAPTER  X. 

Failure  in  Government   281 

CHAPTER  XL 

The  Church  of  England 327 

CHAPTER  XII. 
Penn  's  Second  Marriage  and  Second  Visit 367 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

Government  by  Penn  's  Friends 402 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
The  Anti-Proprietary  Party 433 

ix 


CHAPTER   I. 

National.  Advance  and  Royal  Charters. 

The  settlement  on  Delaware  Bay  and  River  at 
the  date  of  the  English  Revolution — the  method 
of  dating — Boundaries  in  English  charters  for 
Virginia,  New  England,  and  Maryland — Dutch 
and  Swedes  on  the  Delaware — English  conquest 
and  the  treaties — Duke  of  York's  control — Wil- 
liam Penn's  parentage — His  application  for  land 
— Description  in  the  charter  to  him. 

When  the  English  Revolution  took  place,  white 
people  of  various  nationality,  but  united  under  one 
government  derived  from  that  Crown  which  the  Revo- 
lution transferred,  were  already  scattered  from  below 
Cape  Henlopen  to  above  the  Falls  of  the  Delaware, 
through  a  depth  westward  from  the  water's  edge  of 
about  twelve  miles.  Cultivated  fields  were  alternating 
with  extensive  forests  throughout  the  whole  region, 
dwelling-houses  were  at  the  borders  of  the  owners' 
plantations,  perhaps  more  sheds  than  barns  held  crops 
and  quadrupeds,  a  mill  had  been  established  to  grind 
the  corn  for  each  neighbourhood,  while  primitive  man- 
ufactories for  lime,  glass,  etc.,  were  here  and  there,  a 
few  meeting-houses  for  Quakers  had  been  built,  and 
two  or  three  structures  scarcely  more  ornate,  but  for 
more  ornate  worship,  may  have  been  standing.  In 
some  places,  the  newer  houses  were  close  to  one  an- 
other by  a  township  plan,  and  there  were  a  few  villages 
representing  settlements  which  might  be  called  old  for 
that  part  of  the  New  World,  such  as  Lewes,  or  Whore- 


2  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

kills,  New  Castle,  once  New  Amstel,  and  Chester, 
formerly  Upland.  New  Castle  had  perhaps  a  wharf, 
and  certainly  a  fort  or  stockade,  which  however  had 
been  long  unused,  and  was  in  want  of  repair,  and  there 
were  the  ruins  of  a  governor's  headquarters  on  Tini- 
cum  Island.  Up  the  river,  several  miles  north  of  the 
mouth  of  the  Schuylkill,  and  on  rising  ground,  which 
was  marked  by  recently  inhabited  caves,  and  divided 
by  a  creek  or  arm  of  the  Delaware,  were,  however,  the 
beginnings  of  a  capital  city,  designed  to  cover  the 
isthmus  where  the  two  rivers  were  bent  again  towards 
each  other.  A  large  wharf  had  been  made,  at  which 
a  goodly  number  of  vessels  were  coming  and  going 
during  eight  or  nine  months  of  the  year.  Houses, 
quite  a  number  being  of  brick,  faced  the  Delaware  on 
a  street  along  the  top  of  the  slope  towards  the  water, 
and  there  were  others  on  both  sides  of  the  next  street 
to  the  west,  as  also  near  the  Delaware  end  of  streets 
laid  out  from  river  to  river.  In  the  middle  of  the 
widest  of  the  latter  streets,  near  the  top  of  the  slope, 
were  the  market  sheds  and  the  little  court  house,  the 
seat  of  authority.  Miles  away,  near  the  rapids,  or 
Falls,  of  the  Delaware,  was  the  manor-house  of  William 
Penn,  Proprietary  and  Governor  in  Chief.  One  cor- 
rection of  tradition  may  well  be  made  in  passing:  the 
bricks  of  the  old  buildings  of  Pennsylvania  were  not 
brought  from  England ;  on  the  contrary,  clay  was  most 
abundant  in  the  soil,  and,  naturally,  brickmaking  was 
early  a  great  industry,  and  it  is  ridiculous  to  suppose 
that  freight  for  over  3000  miles  was  paid  for  what 
could  be  obtained  at  or  near  the  spot. 

The  Revolution  was  consummated  when,  after  James 
II  had  succeeded  in  his  second  attempt  to  escape  from 
England,  William  and  Mary,  Prince  and  Princess  of 
Orange,  formally  accepted  the  joint  sovereignty  of- 
fered by  the  Lords  and  Commons  assembled  at  West- 
minster,  and  gave  adherence  to   the   Declaration   of 


National  Advance  and  Royal  Charters.  3 

Right,  and  were  proclaimed  King  and  Queen.  The 
day  on  which  this  took  place  is  that  with  which  this 
chronicling  of  events  connected  with  the  civilized  part 
of  the  present  extent  of  Pennsylvania  begins,  viz:  a 
Wednesday  which  the  English  of  the  time  reckoned  as 
"the  thirteenth  day  of  February  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  one  thousand  six  hundred  and  eighty-eight,"  but 
which  most  of  the  nations  of  Western  Europe,  includ- 
ing Scotland,  called  ' l  the  twenty-third  day  of  February 
in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  six  hundred  and 
eighty-nine."  Those  nations  had  adopted  the  Grego- 
rian calendar,  advancing  the  time  ten  days,  and  begin- 
ning the  year  on  their  first  day  of  January,  whereas 
England  was  beginning  it  on  what  the  English  called 
the  twenty-fifth  of  March  following.  Under  the  Eng- 
lish system,  January  and  February  were  the  eleventh 
and  twelfth  months  respectively,  and  March  was  called 
the  first  month,  although  twenty-four  of  its  days  were 
at  the  end  of  a  year.  The  Quakers  numbered,  instead 
of  naming,  the  months,  and  this  was  directed  by  an 
Act  of  Assembly  of  Pennsylvania,  interpreted  incor- 
rectly by  the  editor  of  Volume  I  of  the  Minutes  of  the 
Provincial  Council  as  directing  that  the  year  start  with 
the  first  day  of  March.  As  was  usual  in  private  let- 
ters, the  records  of  the  colony  from  January  1st  to 
March  24th  both  inclusive,  while  giving  the  day  of  the 
month  according  to  the  local  calendar,  generally  give 
the  year  according  to  both  English  and  French  style, 
the  last  figure  of  the  year  looking  like  a  fraction  with 
the  English  figure  as  numerator  and  the  French  figure 
as  denominator,  as,  for  instance,  168f,  or  else  there 
being  added  with  a  hyphen  after  the  English  year  the 
last  figure  of  the  French  year,  as  in  1688-9.  England 
and,  following  her,  Pennsylvania  adhered  to  the  old, 
or  Julian,  calendar,  and  to  the  twenty-fifth  of  March 
as  New  Year's  day,  throughout  the  whole  period  of 
this  history.     Each  date  in  this  book  being  given  as 


4  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

stated  in  the  authority  for  it,  the  reader  may  assume,  un- 
less it  is  otherwise  declared,  that  it  is  according  to  that 
' '  Old  Style. ' '  The  only  difference  in  the  length  of  the 
months  in  the  two  calendars  during  the  period  was 
that  the  old  had  a  twenty-ninth  of  February  in  the 
year  1700,  while  the  new  had  not:  so  that  the  English 
first  of  March,  1700,  was  the  French  twelfth  of  March, 
1701,  and  so  on,  the  discrepancy  of  ten  days  becoming 
eleven  days. 

The  year  of  our  Lord  according  to  the  Old  Style 
will  be  found  in  this  book  in  parenthesis  when  a  docu- 
ment dated  by  the  year  of  a  king's  reign  is  mentioned; 
a  mode  of  dating  which  would  puzzle  the  reader,  par- 
ticularly as  to  the  acts  of  Charles  II,  who  dated  his 
reign  from  the  execution  of  Charles  I,  January  30, 
1648-9,  although  Charles  II  was  not  restored  to  power 
until  May  8,  1660,  when  proclaimed  King,  or  May  29, 
1660,  when  he  entered  London,  in  what  was  called 
the  twelfth  year  of  his  reign.  It  may  be  useful  to 
state  that,  counting  the  day  of  accession  as  the  first 
day  of  the  first  year  of  the  reign, 

the  first  vear  of  James  I  ended  on  March  23,  1603-4, 
O.  S., 

the  first  year  of  Charles  I  ended  on  March  26,  1626, 
O.  S., 

the  first  year  of  Charles  II  ended  on  January  29, 
1649-50,  O.  S., 

the  first  year  of  James  II  ended  on  February  5, 
1685-6,  O.  8., 

the  first  year  of  William  III  ended  on  February  12, 
1689-90,  O.  S., 

the  first  vear  of  Anne  ended  on  March  7,  1702-3, 
O.  S., 

the  first  year  of  George  I  ended  on  July  31,  1715, 
O.  S., 

the  first  year  of  George  II  ended  on  June  10,  1728, 
O.  S. 


National  Advance  and  Royal  Charters.  5 

Although  by  the  time  with  which  these  Chronicles 
start,  the  dream  of  a  Scandinavian  world-power  had 
vanished,  the  furs  of  America  had  been  diverted  from 
Amsterdam,  and  the  Europeans  on  the  western  shore 
of  Delaware  Bay  and  River  had  accepted  the  status  of 
tenants  of  William  Penn,  it  is  necessary,  even  before 
studying  the  people,  the  proprietaryship,  and  the  gov- 
ernment, to  take  a  retrospect  as  far  as  before  the  reign 
of  Gustavus  Adolphus  and  the  voyages  of  Henry  Hud- 
son, in  order  to  explain  the  boundary  dispute  which 
overhung  a  large  part  of  the  present  extent  of  Pennsyl- 
vania during  the  whole  period  chronicled. 

When  there  were  no  white  people  on  the  Atlantic 
Coast  between  Maine  and  Florida,  King  James  I  of 
England  authorized  two  settlements  to  be  made  within 
certain  limits  by  a  number  of  his  subjects  in  two  com- 
panies, or  colonies,  as  he  called  them.  After  one  of 
these  companies  had  made  an  establishment  on  the 
James  River,  the  King,  by  charter  dated  May  23rd  in 
the  seventh  year  of  his  reign  over  England  (1609), 
granted  to  those  contributing,  called  "The  Treasurer 
and  Company  of  Adventurers  and  Planters  of  the  City 
of  London  for  the  first  Colony  in  Virginia,"  the  Atlantic 
coast  for  200  miles  northward  and  southward  of  Point 
Comfort  with  a  depth  inward  to  the  Pacific  Ocean, 
which  was  not  then  supposed  to  be  very  far  off.  This 
charter,  which  was  annulled  in  1625.  before  any  lots 
were  sold  north  or  east  of  the  Chesapeake,  is  only  men- 
tioned here  because  this  disposal  of  land,  nearly,  if  not 
quite,  up  to  the  latitude  forty  degrees  north,  was  in 
force  when  the  other  company  also  received  a  separate 
charter  from  the  same  King.  The  Stuart  kings  person- 
ally transacted  the  affairs  of  their  realm:  the  policy 
during  a  reign  was  as  continuous  as  that  under  a  party 
Cabinet  in  later  times,  either  changing  as  exigencies 
arose ;  and  the  theories  of  James  I  or  the  carelessness 
of  Charles  IT  affected  history.     James  I  incorporated 


6  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

in  1620  those  who  had  been  expected  to  make  the  other 
settlement,  calling  them  "The  Council  established  at 
Plymouth  in  the  County  of  Devon  for  planting,  ruling, 
and  governing  of  New  England  in  America."  The 
charter  to  this  Council  recited  the  depopulation  of  the 
coast  "between  the  degrees  of  forty  and  forty-eight," 
and  gave  the  name  New  England  to  all  the  territory 
in  America  lying  and  being  in  breadth  from  forty  de- 
grees of  northerly  latitude  from  the  equinoctial  line  to 
forty-eight  degrees  of  said  northerly  latitude,  and  in 
length  by  all  the  breadth  aforesaid  throughout  the 
main  land  from  sea  to  sea.  In  the  granting  clause,  but 
nowhere  else,  the  word  "inclusively"  occurs  after  the 
words  "to  forty-eight  degrees  of  said  northerly  lati- 
tude, ' '  but  this  can  hardly  be  thought  so  to  enlarge  the 
description  as  to  cover  anything  south  of  what  is  just 
forty  degrees  north  of  the  equator.  The  parallels 
of  latitude  used  by  geographers  mark  the  end  or  com- 
pletion of  just  so  many  degrees  as  the  number  attached 
to  them  on  the  map,  in  other  words  the  completion 
of  just  that  many,  starting  from  the  equator,  of  the 
ninety  parts  into  which  the  surface  of  the  earth  from 
the  equator  to  the  pole  is  divided.  There  has  been 
some  confusion  in  such  expressions  as  "the  fortieth 
degree,"  "the  forty-eighth  degree,"  etc.,  some  persons 
meaning  the  parallels  marking  forty  degrees,  forty- 
eight  degrees,  etc.,  and  some  even  meaning  the  space 
north  of  the  parallels  marking  so  many  degrees. 
Early  instances  of  the  use  of  the  expression  with  one 
or  other  of  these  meanings  can  be  found,  but,  what  is 
much  in  point,  William  Penn  and  Lord  Baltimore, 
sixty  years  after  the  granting  of  the  New  England 
charter,  were  speaking  of  the  parallel  marking  forty 
degrees  as  "the  fortieth  degree."  In  strictness,  the 
later  Penns  were  right  in  saying  that  the  fortieth  de- 
gree is  the  fortieth  of  the  ninety  spaces  from  the 
equator  to  the  pole,  the  space  beginning  at  the  equa- 


National  Advance  and  Royal  Charters.  7 

tor,  and  running  to  parallel  marked  1°,  being  the  first; 
in  other  words,  that  the  fortieth  degree  is  the  space 
between  the  parallel  marked  39°  and  that  marked  40°. 
A  description,  however,  like  that  of  New  England, 
4 'from  forty  degrees  to  forty-eight  degrees"  is  obvi- 
ously from  where  you  count  forty  degrees  complete 
from  the  equator  to  where  you  count  forty-eight  de- 
grees complete.  Against  an  interpretation  that  this 
region  was  to  start  northward  from  the  parallel  39°, 
is  the  fact  that  it  would  then  have  covered  a  consider- 
able part  of  the  southern  colony's  200  miles  north  of 
Point  Comfort,  and  this  could  not  have  been  intended. 
Although  in  the  charter  an  exception  was  made  of  all 
land  actually  possessed  or  inhabited  by  other  Christian 
princes  or  states,  or  within  the  bounds  of  the  southern 
colony,  it  is  most  likely  that  the  description  was  meant 
to  run  from  as  near  as  possible  just  where  the  southern 
colony  ended.  Therefore,  the  southern  termination 
of  what  was  meant  by  New  England  for  many  years 
after  1620,  must  have  been  the  parallel  marked  40°, 
the  completion  of  forty  degrees  north  of  the  equa- 
tor. 

This  parallel,  which  will  be  spoken  of  in  these  pages 
as  "the  fortieth  parallel,"  will  be  seen  in  modern  maps 
to  strike  the  New  Jersey  coast  at  Chadwick,  about  two 
miles  south  of  Mantoloking,  and  the  western  side  of 
the  Delaware  River  at  Bridesburg,  and  to  cross  Broad 
Street,  in  Philadelphia,  below  Clearfield  Street,  and 
the  city  line  below  Bala,  and  to  pass  through  Downing- 
town,  and  south  of,  but  not  far  from,  Lancaster, 
Columbia,  Shippensburg,  Bedford,  and  Brownsville. 

In  the  same  year  that  James  I  made  the  aforesaid 
grant  for  the  southern  colony,  Henry  Hudson,  while 
sailing  in  the  employ  of  the  Dutch  East  India  Com- 
pany, gave  to  the  sovereign  of  that  company  by  explor- 
ing both  the  Delaware  Bay  and  the  Hudson  River  a 
claim  from  the  first  authenticated  discovery  to  the 


8  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

shores  of  each;  and  at  the  time  when  James  I  made 
the  aforesaid  grant  of  New  England,  citizens  of  Hol- 
land, etc.,  were  trading  on  what  they  called  the  North 
River,  and  perhaps  on  the  Delaware,  which  they  called 
the  South  River.  It  was  not  long  afterwards  that 
those  acknowledging  allegiance  to  the  Netherlandish 
Estates  General  came  into  undisputed  possession  of 
the  valley  of  the  Hudson  and  a  large  part  of  Connecti- 
cut and  some  part  of  New  Jersey,  having  forts  on  the 
east  side  of  the  Delaware  River,  buying  land  in  1629 
on  the  west  side  of  Delaware  Bay,  and  for  a  short  time 
keeping  a  fort  there,  and  even,  in  1633,  erecting  a  fort 
on  the  Schuylkill. 

About  1630,  Sir  George  Calvert,  first  Baron  Balti- 
more in  the  peerage  of  Ireland,  who  had  been  one  of 
the  Virginia  Company,  and  one  of  James  I's  secre- 
taries of  state,  sought  from  Charles  I  a  tract  of  land 
north  of  the  settled  part  of  Virginia.  It  is  not  neces- 
sary to  go  into  the  question  of  the  King's  right  to  con- 
vey or  set  off  what  had  been  granted  to  the  dissolved 
company;  for  this  did  not  affect  the  Penn  and  Balti- 
more controversy.  Cecil  Calvert,  the  second  Baron,  pre- 
sented after  the  first  Baron's  death  a  further  petition, 
describing  the  region  desired  as  "uncultivated  and  oc- 
cupied in  parts  by  barbarians  having  no  knowledge  of 
Divine  Inspiration."  In  the  charter's  recital  of  the 
petition  the  words  are  "hactenus  inculta  ei  barbaris 
nullam  divini  numinis  notitiam  habentibus  in  partibus 
occupata."  Under  date  of  June  20th,  in  the  eighth 
year  of  the  reign  (1632),  King  Charles  granted  to  the 
said  second  Baron  and  his  heirs  and  assigns,  according 
to  transcript  of  the  enrolment  of  the  charter,  printed, 
with  its  bad  spelling,  etc.,  with  the  Report  of  Commis- 
sioners of  1872  on  Boundary  of  Maryland  and  Vir- 
ginia: Totam  Mam  partam  Peninsule  sive  Cherson- 
nessus  jacentem  in  partibus  Americe  inter  Oceanum 
ex  oriente  et  Sinum  de   Chesapeake  ab   occidente  a 


National  Advance  and  Royal.  Charters.  9 

residuo  ejusdem  per  rectam  lineam  a  promontorio  sive 
Capite  terre  vocato  Watkins'  Point  juxta  sinum  pre- 
dictum,  prope  Fluvium  de  Wighco  situatum  ab  occi- 
dente,  usque  ad  magnum  Oceanum  in  plaga  orientali 
duct  am,  divisam,  Et  inter  metam  illam  a  meridie  usque 
ad  partam  illam  estuarii  de  De  La  Ware  ab  Aquilone 
que  subjacet  quadrigesimo  gradui  latitudinis  Septen- 
trionalis  ab  cequinoctiali  ubi  terminatur  Nova  Anglia: 
Totum  que  ilium  terre  tractum,  infra  metas  subscriptas 
videlicit  transeundo  a  dicto  Estuario  vocato  Dela- 
ware Baye  recta  linea  per  gradum  predictum  usque 
ad  verum  meridianum  primi  fontis  fluminis  de  Pattow- 
mack  deinde  vergendo  versus  meridiem  ad  ulterior  em 
dicti  ftuminis  ripam  et  earn  sequendo  qua  plaga  occi- 
dentalis  et  meridionalis  spectat  usque  ad  locum  quen- 
dam  appellatum  Cinquack  prope  ejusdem  Fluminis 
ostium  scityatum  ubi  in  prefatum  Sinum  de  Chesso- 
peak  evolvitur  ac  inde  per  lineam  brevissimam  usque 
ad  predictum  Promontorium  sive  locum  vocatum  Wat- 
kins'  Point." 

As  this  makes  the  northern  boundary  "ubi  termi- 
natur Nova  Anglia,"  it  seems  unnecessary  to  give  any 
further  reason  why  the  only  fair  construction  is  that 
the  words  ''quadrigesimo  gradui  latitudinis"  mean 
the  fortieth  parallel,  marking  the  completion  of  forty 
degrees,  not  the  beginning  of  the  fortieth  space  from 
the  equator,  and  that  the  word  "estuarii"  covers  river 
as  well  as  bay.  Thus  this  charter,  under  which  the 
Lords  Baltimore  were  Proprietors  of  Maryland  until 
the  American  Revolution,  relates  to  all  land  beginning 
at  Watkin's  Point  on  the  Chesapeake,  then  along  a  line 
drawn  to  the  Atlantic  as  the  southern  boundary  line, 
then  up  the  Atlantic  coast  and  the  shore  of  Delaware 
Bay  and  River  to  where  it  is  crossed  by  the  fortieth 
parallel,  where  New  England  terminated,  and  west- 
ward along  said  parallel — "per  gradum  predictum" — 
to  the  meridian  of  the  furthest  source  of  the  Potomac, 


10  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

then  due  south  to  the  Potomac,  and  along  its  southern 
bank  to  Cinquack  near  the  mouth,  and  thence  by  the 
shortest  line  to  Watkin's  Point.  We  are  confident  that, 
had  the  original  grantee  soon  put  a  town  on  the  Dela- 
ware River  anywhere  not  supposed  to  be  above  the 
fortieth  parallel,  say  at  League  Island  or  the  mouth  of 
Dock  Creek,  all  England  would  have  thought  him  act- 
ing within  his  rights.  When  his  heirs,  notwithstanding 
matters  to  be  hereafter  mentioned,  had  persisted  in 
claiming  what  is  now  the  state  of  Delaware  and  Dela- 
ware County  and  a  great  part  of  other  counties  in 
Pennsylvania,  the  Penns  found  lawyers  to  argue  for 
various  interpretations  of  the  charter.  The  Penns 
finally  insisted  that  "subjacet  quadragesimo  gradui" 
means  "lies  south  of  the  beginning  of  the  fortieth  de- 
gree," i.e.  south  of  the  thirty-ninth  parallel.  Were 
there  no  other  reasons  against  this,  it  could  scarcely 
have  been  Charles  I's  actual  intention  to  give  such  a 
small  part  of  the  wilderness  to  the  heir  of  an  old  pub- 
lic servant  like  George  Calvert,  who  had  spent  large 
sums  in  colonial  enterprises,  and  had  asked  for  this 
grant  to  reimburse  him.  At  the  time  the  description 
was  written,  Capt.  John  Smith's  map  was  the  author- 
ity as  to  the  country  around  the  Chesapeake,  and  that 
map  made  Watkin's  Point,  the  starting-place,  about 
38°  10'  north.  To  put  the  northern  boundary  at  the  par- 
allel 39°,  was  to  give  only  about  fifty  miles  of  width, 
degrees  being  then  computed  at  sixty  statute  miles. 
The  general  notion  of  the  English  government  when 
William  Penn  asked  for  a  grant  of  land  was  that 
Lord  Baltimore  had  two  degrees  of  latitude,  and  it 
was  to  such  dimensions  that  Penn  desired  to  hold 
him.  Watkin's  Point  being  38°  10',  made  the  tradi- 
tional northern  boundary  at  least  forty  degrees  north. 
William  Penn,  instead  of  claiming  that  the  "fortieth 
degree"  or  "the  beginning"  meant  the  parallel  39°, 
argued  to  the  third  Lord   Baltimore  that  when  the 


National  Advance  and  Eoyal,  Charters.        11 

patent  of  1632  was  granted,  Watkin's  Point  was 
supposed  to  be  '  *  in  the  thirty-eighth  degree, ' '  Penn  thus 
using  the  popular  language,  by  which  the  degree  is 
beyond  the  parallel  marking  that  many  degrees.  Of 
the  two  lines,  that  at  the  beginning,  and  that  at  the 
completion  of  the  true  fortieth  degree,  only  by  using 
that  at  the  completion  can  the  figure  be  drawn  accord- 
ing to  Smith's  map,  which  delineates  the  Potomac  as 
having  its  first  source  about  as  near  the  fortieth  paral- 
lel as  the  bend  of  that  river  at  Hancock  actually  is ;  so 
that  a  line  running  south  to  reach  the  source  could 
never  start  from  the  thirty-ninth  parallel.  In  fact, 
Smith  had  gone  up  the  Potomac  to  39°  30',  and  re- 
ported the  river  as  extending  further  many  miles 
northwestwardly ;  so  it  would  have  appeared  nonsense 
to  talk  about  land  at  the  sources  of  the  river  in  a 
grant  reaching  no  further  north  than  39°.  The  sug- 
gestion, once  made,  that  Baltimore's  land  could  not 
extend  further  north  than  the  head  of  Delaware  Bay 
would  have  made  the  description  contradictory,  as 
an  east  and  west  line  therefrom  would  shut  out  the 
upper  Potomac.  In  the  charter  for  Connecticut,  about 
thirty  years  later,  a  certain  body  of  water  is  called  a 
river,  and  described  as  being  commonly  called  a  bay. 
The  truth  seems  to  be  that,  as  Argall,  the  English  dis- 
coverer of  Delaware  Bay,  who  visited  it  the  year  after 
Hudson,  described  it  as  extending  inwards  thirty 
leagues,  the  English  thought  that  the  head  of  the  bay 
might  be  further  north  than  forty  degrees,  twenty 
marine  leagues  bemg  a  degree.  To  be  sure,  Argall 
said  "lying  in  westwardly,"  and  made  the  latitude  of 
the  southern  cape  38°  20'  north,  but  Hudson  had  more 
accurately  made  that  of  the  northern  cape  38°  54'. 
The  Penns'  final  contention,  from  the  use  of  the  word 
subjacet,  even  excluded  from  this  grant  the  northern 
part  of  the  shore  along  the  salt  water,  as  not  lying 
"under  the  fortieth  degree."    Lord  Chancellor  Hard- 


12  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

wicke,  in  enforcing  the  compromise  agreed  upon  by  the 
Penns  and  Lord  Baltimore,  said  that  there  was  an 
ambiguity  as  to  whether  the  grant  extended  to  or 
through  the  degree.  It  would  seem  that  any  such  am- 
biguity should  have  been  solved  according  to  the  pro- 
vision which  the  charter  itself  contained,  that,  in  case 
of  doubt  as  to  the  true  meaning  of  any  word,  clause, 
or  sentence,  the  interpretation  should  always  be 
"benignior,  utilior,  et  favorabiliter"  for  Lord  Balti- 
more and  his  heirs  and  assigns. 

There  are  publicists  who  would  have  settled  all  con- 
flicting claims  upon  the  broad  principle  that  grants  of 
political  power  are  revocable  by  the  supreme  authority 
of  the  State,  and  that  the  latest  grantee — in  this  case 
William  Penn — is  to  supersede  those  prior  to  him. 
This  principle,  however  just,  and  how  much  soever 
followed  in  reality  by  Councils  of  State  and  courts  of 
law,  was  too  dangerous  to  the  heirs  of  the  latest  one 
favored  to  be  urged  by  them.  A  solution  similarly 
dangerous  to  them  could  be  found  also  in  treating  the 
grants  of  the  American  wilderness,  when  greatly  ex- 
ceeding the  needs  or  services  of  the  recipients,  as  mere 
licenses  to  occupy  with  colonists,  and  as  lapsing  with 
non-user.  No  attempt  to  send  colonists  to  the  Dela- 
ware Eiver  under  this  charter  of  1632  was  made  until 
the  shores  had  passed  under  another  flag,  and  had  been 
afterwards  freshly  acquired  by  conquest.  The  main 
assertion  of  the  Penns  in  opposition  to  the  Lords 
Baltimore  was  that  the  charter  of  1632  was,  as  to  what 
the  Penns  wanted,  invalid  or  inoperative,  or  had  be- 
come so.  Original  invalidity  would  be  recognized  if 
some  other  civilized  power,  instead  of  the  king  who 
made  the  grant,  had  the  rightful  title.  As  excepted 
from  the  operation  of  the  charter  would  be  all  land  as 
to  which  the  recital  of  its  being  occupied  only  by  sav- 
ages was  untrue;  for  that  recital  amounted  to  a  con- 
dition annexed  to  the  gift,  as  it  expressed  the  informa- 


National  Advance  and  Royal  Charters.        13 

tion  on  which  it  was  based,  and  a  royal  gift  based  on 
untrue  information  was  void.  The  Crown  of  England 
had  claimed  title  by  discovery  to  the  whole  region 
granted  to  the  Virginia  and  New  England  companies, 
but  James  I  rather  appealed  to  early  possession  or  a 
right  to  occupy  what  was  vacant,  and  neither  he  nor 
Charles  I  was  interfering  with  actual  colonies  of  other 
civilized  powers.  Of  course  there  was  a  limit  to  the 
possessions  of  such  colonies.  Unless  the  whole  of 
North  America  was  to  be  included  in  Mexico,  or  the 
northern  part  of  the  present  United  States  was  to  be 
included  in  Canada,  one  European  nation  could  not  be 
deemed  owner  of  territory  beyond  its  effective  control. 
Therefore  the  force  of  the  charter  to  Lord  Baltimore 
on  the  Susquehanna  and  Delaware  respectively  is  to 
be  distinguished.  No  European  outpost  had  been  es- 
tablished in  that  part  of  the  region  described  in  the 
charter  which  lay  west  of  the  watershed  between  the 
two  rivers:  and  it  was  the  merest  pretence  of  Dutch 
influence  or  the  boundaries  of  deeds  to  the  Dutch  from 
certain  Indians  which  could  impeach  the  Calverts' 
right  in  that  part.  Moreover,  as  will  be  shown  further 
on,  the  claim  had  been  duly  prosecuted  there. 

As  to  the  land  drained  by  Del-aware  Eiver  and  Bay, 
however,  while  it  is  not  clear  that  such  settlements  as 
the  Dutch  had  made  by  1632  amounted  to  an  occupa- 
tion, the  English  did  not  really  acquire  the  region  until 
more  than  thirty  years  after  that  date.  Not  only  did 
the  Estates  General  of  the  United  Belgic  or  Nether- 
land  Provinces — Holland,  Zeeland,  Friesland,  etc., — 
soon  take  additional  points  under  their  sovereignty, 
but,  moreover,  pursuant  to  the  design  of  Gustavus 
Adolphus,  his  successors  on  the  throne  of  Sweden, 
being  also  Princes  of  Finland,  etc.,  sent  over  their  sub- 
jects to  both  the  eastern  and  the  western  shores  of  the 
Delaware.  In  the  course  of  years,  various  English- 
men independent  of  Lord  Baltimore,  made  unsuccess- 


14  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

ful  attempts  to  trade  or  plant  there:  meanwhile  the 
two  other  nations  lived  side  by  side  with  unsettled 
boundaries.  William  Penn  very  reasonably  thought 
that,  even  if  Lord  Baltimore's  patent  was  originally 
good,  he  had  lost  his  right  to  that  region  by  never  ac- 
quiring possession,  and  the  region  had  become  the 
property  of  the  Dutch  by  the  treaty  between  Cromwell 
and  the  Estates  General  in  1653,  yielding  to  the  latter 
the  land  of  which  they  were  possessed  at  the  beginning 
of  the  war.  The  restored  English  monarchy,  keeping 
Jamaica,  which  was  acquired  through  that  treaty,  was 
bound  by  it.  Sweden,  by  the  capture  of  the  Dutch  fort 
in  May,  1654,  secured  the  dominion  of  the  Delaware 
basin  from  below  Cape  Henlopen  to  miles  above  the 
fortieth  parallel;  but  the  Dutch  reconquered  it  in  Sep- 
tember, 1655. 

Except  to  state  title  in  sending  commissioners  to 
agree  upon  a  boundary,  Lord  Baltimore  and  his  repre- 
sentatives seem  to  have  acquiesced  in  the  possession 
by  the  Swedes  and  Dutch  until  1659,  when  he  sent  an 
officer  to  New  Amstel  to  demand  the  withdrawal  of  the 
settlers  who  were  below  the  fortieth  degree  or  an  ac- 
knowledgment of  tenure.  The  Dutch  officials  refused, 
and  their  superiors  on  Manhattan  Island  sent  ambassa- 
dors asserting  title  under  the  King  of  Spain's  right 
by  Columbus's  discoveries,  and  the  assignment  of  that 
right  to  the  United  Republic  of  the  Seven  Provinces  by 
the  treaty  of  Munster  in  1648,  recognizing  their  inde- 
pendence, and  giving  up  all  countries  conquered  and 
seated  by  them.  The  ambassadors  claimed  in  general 
New  Netherland,  extending  along  the  ocean  from  38°  to 
42°,  bounded  on  the  west  by  Maryland  on  Chesapeake 
Bay,  as  one  of  those  countries,  and  in  particular  the 
South  River,  as  having  been  possessed  by  the  settlement 
of  Hoorekill  (the  early  spelling  of  Whorekill),  and  by 
various  forts.  A  just  title  to  the  whole  river  and  espe- 
cially the  western  shore  was  furthermore  claimed  from 


National  Advance  and  Royal  Charters.        15 

purchase  from  the  natural  proprietors,  the  native 
Indians.  Baltimore  subsequently  had  an  agent  press 
his  cause  in  Holland,  but  without  success. 

Although  James  I  and  Charles  I  had  tried  to  avoid 
any  conflict  in  regard  to  colonies  with  other  civilized 
nations,  Charles  II  in  fact  offered  the  Netherlandish 
possessions  in  North  America  to  any  Englishman  who 
would  conquer  them.  It  has  been  said  that  he  never 
forgave  the  Estates  General  for  sending  him,  when  an 
exile,  away  from  the  Hague,  at  the  demand  of  Crom- 
well. The  restored  monarch  did  not  wait  for  a  declara- 
tion of  war.  Under  date  of  April  23rd  in  the  fourteenth 
year  of  his  reign  (1662),  in  chartering  the  Governor  and 
Company  of  Connecticut,  he  granted  to  them  a  depth 
or  extent  in  longitude  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  with  no  ex- 
ceptions as  to  the  possessions  of  other  civilized  nations. 
This  may  have  been  merely  a  careless  copying  of  the 
charter  for  Massachusetts,  or  designed  by  the  grantees 
to  enable  them  to  absorb  the  rival  colony  of  New 
Haven,  in  which  they  succeeded;  but  such  a  document 
could  have  been  construed  as  a  license  to  seize  under 
the  old  claim  of  the  Crown  of  England  the  southern 
part  of  the  Hudson  Valley,  and  what  lay  west  of  it. 
The  extent  of  the  grant  southward  was  not  mentioned 
clearly,  the  description  being  "all  that  part  of  the 
King's  dominions  in  New  England  in  America" — as 
before  mentioned,  the  land  from  the  fortieth  parallel  to 
the  forty-eighth  parallel  had  received  the  name  New 
England  in  1620 — bounded  on  the  east  by  Narragan- 
sett  River  "commonly  called  Narragansett  Bay  where 
the  said  River  falleth  into  the  Sea;  and  on  the  north 
by  the  line  of  the  Massachusetts  Plantation;  and  on 
the  south  by  the  Sea  and  in  longitude  as  the  line  of  the 
Massachusetts  Colony  running  from  east  to  west  that 
is  to  say  from  the  said  Narragansett  Bay  on  the  east 
to  the  South  Sea" — i.e.  the  Pacific  Ocean — "on  the 
west   with   the   islands    thereunto   belonging."     Had 


16  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

there  been  no  Europeans  above  the  fortieth  parallel, 
we  may  admit  that,  under  this  description,  Connecticut 
could  have  sent  colonists  to  and  possessed  what  became 
Bucks  County,  Pennsylvania,  as  well  as  Manhattan 
Island,  and  been  ultimately  the  greatest  state  in  the 
American  Union.  We  need  not  stop  to  examine  the 
claim  of  Connecticut  to  the  Wyoming  region;  for  it 
was  not  brought  forward  until  alter  the  time  at  which 
this  history  closes.  The  recipients  of  the  aforesaid 
charter  of  1662  not  having  evicted  the  Dutch,  King 
Charles,  under  date  of  March  12,  1663-4,  executed  a 
patent  to  his  brother,  who  was  his  heir  presumptive, 
James,  Duke  of  York,  etc.,  for  the  land  from  the  west 
side  of  the  Connecticut  River  to  the  east  side  of  Dela- 
ware Bay.  Under  date  of  April  25th,  in  the  sixteenth 
year  of  the  reign  (1664),  and  with  a  recital  that  com- 
plaints had  been  received  from  New  England  of  dif- 
ferences and  disputes  as  to  the  bounds  of  the  charters 
and  jurisdictions,  a  commission  was  given  to  Col. 
Richard  Nicolls,  Sir  Robert  Carre,  George  Cartwright, 
and  Samuel  Maverick  to  visit  the  colonies  and  other 
plantations  within  the  tract  known  as  New  England, 
and  hear  and  determine  all  complaints  and  appeals, 
and  to  provide  for  and  settle  the  peace  and  security 
of  the  country  according  to  their  discretion  and  in- 
structions. The  instructions  were  to  reduce  the  Dutch 
li anywhere  within  the  limits  of  our  [Charles  IPs] 
dominions  to  an  entire  obedience  to  our  government," 
no  man  to  be  disturbed  in  his  possessions  who  would 
yield  obedience,  and  live  in  subjection,  with  the  same 
privileges  as  other  subjects. 

The  Commissioners  sailed  from  England  with  a  con- 
siderable force,  and  overawed  the  Dutch  garrison  on 
Manhattan,  obtaining  a  surrender  of  that  region  with- 
out the  shedding  of  blood;  and  a  detachment  under 
Sir  Robert  Carre  was  sent  to  summon  the  Governor 
and  inhabitants  on  the  Delaware  to  yield  obedience  to 


National,  Advance  and  Royal  Charters.        17 

their  "rightful  sovereign,"  who  was  pleased  to  have 
them  enjoy  their  real  and  personal  property  and  lib- 
erty of  conscience.  The  Swedes  among  the  people 
were  to  receive  congratulation  on  ' '  their  happy  return 
under  a  monarchial  government"!  Carre  was  in- 
structed to  declare  to  Lord  Baltimore's  son  and  all 
Englishmen  concerned  in  Maryland  that  Carre  was 
only  employed  to  reduce  the  region  to  obedience  to  the 
King,  for  whose  own  behoof  Carre  was  to  keep  posses- 
sion: if  Lord  Baltimore's  right  under  his  charter  was 
asserted,  Carre  was  to  say  that  he  was  keeping  the 
place  only  until  the  King  was  "informed  and  satisfied 
otherwise. ' '  Carre  went  up  the  Delaware,  passing  the 
fort  at  New  Amstel  on  the  last  day  of  September ;  and, 
in  the  course  of  three  days,  gaining  the  Swedes  to  his 
side,  he  entered  into  an  agreement,  which  was  dated 
October  1st,  with  the  burgomasters,  who  declared  them- 
selves acting  in  behalf  also  of  all  the  Dutch  and  Swedes 
of  Delaware  Bay  and  River,  that  they  submitted  to  the 
King's  authority,  and  were  to  be  protected  in  their  per- 
sons and  property.  The  commander  of  the  fort,  however, 
was  true  to  his  charge,  and  refused  to  surrender;  so, 
on  Sunday  morning,  the  detachment  under  Carre 
opened  fire,  and  then  stormed  the  fort  without  loss, 
killing  three  of  the  garrison,  and  wounding  ten.  On 
October  24th,  Nicolls  was  authorized  by  the  Commis- 
sioners to  go  to  the  region  thus  conquered,  and  take 
care  of  the  government,  and  depute  such  officers  for 
the  same  as  he  should  see  fit. 

In  none  of  these  proceedings  do  we  find  the  western 
shore  of  Delaware  River  and  Bay  declared  the  prop- 
erty of  the  Duke.  Nicolls,  in  various  patents  of  1667 
and  1668  for  lands  there,  describes  himself  as  Principal 
Commissioner  from  the  King  for  New  England,  Gov- 
ernor-General under  the  Duke  of  York  of  his  territories 
in  America,  and  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  King's 


18  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

forces  to  reduce  the  " usurped"  plantations  of  the 
Dutch  to  his  Majesty's  obedience. 

By  the  treaty  of  Breda,  made  in  1667,  the  Dutch  left 
the  English  in  possession  of  these  conquests,  included 
among  the  places  held  by  the  English  on  the  10th  of 
May  of  that  year. 

In  1668,  the  English  officers  at  New  York,  in  provid- 
ing for  certain  persons  to  be  Councillors  at  Delaware, 
ordered  them  to  take  an  oath  to  the  Duke  of  York,  and 
established  for  matters  of  difficulty  an  appeal  to  the 
Governor  and  Council  at  New  York.  Thus  the  Governor 
commissioned  by  the  Duke  over  his  possessions  in 
America  took  jurisdiction  over  what  had  been  the 
southern  colony  or  province  of  the  Dutch,  which  came 
to  be  often  called  Delaware  more  than  a  century  before 
that  name  was  reassumed  for  the  state  embracing  the 
greater  part  of  the  district.  Magistrates  looking  to 
New  Castle,  as  New  Amstel  was  called,  refused  to  allow 
Marylanders  to  make  surveys  near  the  bay  or  river, 
and  when,  in  1672,  the  Marylanders  seized  goods  at 
Whorekill,  and  talked  of  a  stronger  expedition  to  pos- 
sess the  land  up  to  forty  degrees  north,  the  commander 
at  New  Castle  prepared,  by  order  of  the  New  York 
Governor,  to  resist  what  was  deemed  an  invasion. 

In  the  summer  of  1673,  the  Dutch  and  English  being 
again  at  war,  the  former  captured  New  Netherland, 
and  the  people  on  the  Delaware  made  submission.  The 
treaty  signed  at  Westminster  on  February  9,  1673-4, 
restored  to  each  party  the  possessions  taken  by  the 
other  since  the  beginning  of  the  war.  William  Penn 
spoke  of  this  arrangement  as  an  exchange  of  Surinam, 
which  the  English  were  actually  holding,  for  the  North 
American  conquests  of  the  Dutch. 

Doubts  could  be  raised  whether  the  former  grant  to 
the  Duke  of  York  by  a  king  not  actually  in  possession 
had  been  valid.  Apparently  to  set  the  question  at  rest, 
Charles  II  issued  a  new  patent  under  date  of  June  29, 


National  Advance  and  Royal  Charters.        19 

1674,  to  the  Duke  of  York,  again  using  the  description 
running  only  to  the  east  side  of  Delaware  River  and 
Bay.  As  the  Duke,  down  to  his  accession  to  the  Eng- 
lish throne  as  James  II,  received  no  express  grant  of 
the  region  west  of  that  river  and  bay,  some  color  of 
title  thereto  was  sought  in  the  words  added,  as  usual, 
in  the  patent:  "together  with  all  the  lands,  islands, 
soils,  .  .  .  with  their  and  every  one  of  their  appur- 
tenances." It  would  seem,  on  the  contrary,  that  the 
patent  was  prepared  with  care  not  to  conflict  with  the 
old  grant  to  Lord  Baltimore.  However,  the  officers  of 
the  Duke  of  York  assumed  authority  over  the  western 
shore  of  the  Delaware  in  November,  1674,  upon  the 
transfer  of  New  Netherland  to  the  English  under  the 
treaty ;  and  not  only  was  this  command  preserved  until 
1681,  but  rents  were  reserved  to  the  Duke  and  his  heirs. 
While  the  Lords  Baltimore  were  losing  land  on  the 
Delaware,  there  was  a  different  state  of  affairs  a  few 
miles  west  of  it,  neither  the  Dutch  nor  the  Swedes 
dwelling  far  from  that  water.  Before  the  English  con- 
quest of  New  Netherland,  those  deriving  title  under 
the  patent  of  1632  had  peopled  the  eastern  shore  of 
the  Chesapeake,  and  supplanted  Clayborne's  Virginia 
colony  on  Palmer's  Island,  and  perhaps  elsewhere  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Susquehanna,  and  the  government 
of  Maryland,  by  assisting  the  Indians  in  war,  had  ex- 
tended the  sphere  of  influence,  if  not  the  actual  planta- 
tion, of  its  Proprietary,  as  far  north  as  the  limit  men- 
tioned in  the  patent.  In  1661,  troops  of  the  Province, 
in  accordance  with  a  treaty  of  alliance  with  the  Susque- 
hannocks,  went  to  Susquehanna  Fort  to  help  to  defend 
it,  and,  although  the  English  garrison  stipulated  for  was 
not  maintained,  the  Marylanders  for  a  number  of  years, 
as  appears  in  the  records,  had  communication  with  that 
tribe's  stronghold,  which  the  contemporary  Jesuit  rela- 
tions and  some  data  collected  by  Eshleman  indicate  to 
have  been  at  one  time  above  the  Great  Falls  of  the 


20  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

river.  Marylanders  must  have  been  familiar  with  the 
fort's  location.  Augustine  Herman  (name  variously 
spelt),  a  native  of  Bohemia,  who  had  decided  to  remove 
from  New  Amsterdam  to  Maryland,  made  a  contract 
with  the  second  Lord  Baltimore  in  1661  or  1662  to  pre- 
pare a  map  of  his  province  in  consideration  of  a  large 
grant  of  land.  The  work  took  long,  and  was  very  ex- 
pensive, and,  when  finished,  gave  what  was  claimed  to 
be  a  delineation  of  Maryland  as  inhabited  in  the  year 
1670.  The  map  was  published  in  London  in  1673.  It 
marked  the  boundary  line  as  running  through  a  large 
circular  enclosure  called  "The  present  Sasquahana 
Indian  fort"  on  the  west  side  of  the  Susquehanna,  at 
or  south  of  "Canoage,"  and  just  below  "the  greatest 
fall,"  or,  in  other  words,  what  is  known  as  the  Cone- 
wago  Falls,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Conewago  Creek,  which 
also  is  depicted  on  the  map.  The  location  is  actually 
about  five  miles  north  of  the  fortieth  parallel,  a  re- 
markable approximation,  but  no  parallels  are  shown. 
In  carrying  the  line,  intended  to  run  due  east  and  west, 
as  far  as  the  Delaware,  in  accordance  with  Baltimore's 
claims,  it  is  inaccurately  made  to  strike  that  river 
above  where  Bristol  now  is.  The  most  accessible  re- 
print of  the  map  is  in  Clayton  Colman  Hall's  book,  The 
Lords  Baltimore  and  the  Maryland  Palatinate.  Many 
years  afterwards,  persons  serving  the  interests  of  the 
Penns  endeavored  to  discredit  Herman's  map  as  hav- 
ing been  prepared  and  paid  for  in  the  prosecution  of 
Lord  Baltimore's  claims  against  the  Dutch  and  the 
Duke  of  York;  and,  in  the  lawsuit  of  the  Penns  against 
the  fifth  Lord,  there  was  an  attempt  to  prove  that  the 
only  fort  ever  reached  by  the  Marylanders  was  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Octorara,  but  testimony  to  that  effect 
was  duly  contradicted  by  witnesses  brought  by  the  de- 
fendant. The  impression  received  from  Indians  about 
1700  that  no  white  man  had  gone  north  of  the  mouth  of 
the  Octorara  before  1682  is,  at  most,  only  additional 


National  Advance  and  Eoyal  Charters.        21 

evidence  that,  prior  to  1632,  there  were  no  Christian 
colonists  dwelling  in  the  valley  of  the  Susquehanna 
between  the  fortieth  parallel  and  Clayborne's  settle- 
ment, except  possibly  an  isolated  trader,  and  that  down 
to  1680  there  were  none  claiming  possession  adverse  to 
the  Baltimore  grant. 

There  were  various  actions  of  William  Penn,  even 
connected  with  the  boundaries,  which  may  be  con- 
demned, but  we  must  not  think  him  guilty,  when  he 
applied  for  land,  of  seeking  to  have  other  people's 
property  taken  from  them.  He  had  then  no  intention 
of  encroaching  upon  the  rights  of  the  Calverts.  No- 
body knew  where  the  fortieth  degree  lay,  but  it  was 
supposed  that  the  parallel  completing  it,  and  marking 
the  furthest  extent  northward  of  the  claims  of  that 
family,  was  south,  rather  than  north,  of  where  modern 
observations  have  located  it.  As  presented  before  the 
eyes  of  every  inquiring  Englishman,  there  was  up  the 
Susquehanna  and  on  the  western  side  of  the  Delaware 
a  large  region  practically  uncultivated,  and  to  which 
neither  Lord  Baltimore's  patent  nor  the  Duke  of  York's 
patent  did  extend.  If  the  great  depth  westward  which 
the  charter  of  Connecticut  called  for  had  ever  been 
taken  seriously,  it  was  probably  thought  to  have  been 
legally  curtailed,  so  that  it  could  not  embrace  any  part 
of  this  region. 

The  founder  of  Pennsylvania  (see  Howard  M. 
Jenkins's  Family  of  William  Penn)  was  the  son  of  an 
English  admiral  of  the  same  name,  who,  after  serving 
under  the  Commonwealth,  favored  the  restoration  of 
Charles  II,  and  was  knighted,  and  was  the  commander- 
in-chief  under,  and  chief  adviser  of,  the  aforesaid  Duke 
of  York,  when,  in  1665,  the  Duke  had  the  glory  of  signally 
defeating  the  Dutch;  so  that  the  Admiral  and  his  son, 
both  before  and  after  the  latter  became  a  Quaker,  were 
in  close  contact  with  the  royal  brothers.  Charles  II, 
after  the  useful  Admiral  died,  felt  regard  for  the  self- 


22  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

denying  son,  very  possibly  from  a  similar  appreciation 
of  virtue  to  what  that  King  evinced  in  insisting  upon  giv- 
ing a  bishopric  to  the  prebendary,  Thomas  Ken,  "the 
little  black  fellow  that  refused  his  lodging  to  poor 
Nelly,"  Ken  having  declined  to  let  the  King's  mistress 
occupy  the  prebendal  house  at  Winchester  on  the  occa- 
sion of  a  royal  visit.  Admiral  Penn  was  the  son  of  a 
captain  in  the  navy,  who  was  at  one  time  consul  for 
the  Mediterranean  trade,  and  the  Admiral's  monument, 
set  up  by  his  widow,  declared  the  family  to  be  a  branch 
of  the  Penns  of  Penn  in  Buckinghamshire.  The  mother 
of  the  Founder  is  called  in  Pepys's  Diary  a  "Dutch- 
woman;" and,  in  Granville  Penn's  Life  of  Sir  William 
Penn,  her  father,  John  Jasper,  is  described  as  a  mer- 
chant of  Rotterdam.  This  is  doubtless  correct  as  to  a 
part  of  his  life,  and  as  to  his  origin.  W.  Hepworth 
Dixon,  in  A  History  of  William  Penn  Founder  of 
Pennsylvania,  romantically  narrates  the  courtship  of 
the  Bristol  boy,  afterwards  Admiral,  with  the  "rosy 
Margaret, ' '  who  waited  for  him  until  after  he  received 
a  commission,  and  he  "ran  over  to  Rotterdam,  and 
claimed  his  bride;"  but  Dixon  would  have  curbed  his 
imagination  if  he  had  seen  certain  records,  which, 
moreover,  Jenkins  does  not  notice.  Margaret  was  a 
widow,  and  had  been  married  to  the  former  husband 
in  or  before  1631,  the  year  of  the  date  of  his  will,  and, 
while  we  do  not  know  about  her  rosy  cheeks,  we  learn, 
from  compensation  paid  her  after  her  second  marriage, 
that  she  had  property.  A  certificate  dated  August  28, 
1643,  in  the  Dutch  Reformed  Church,  Austin  Friars, 
London,  from  Rev.  Andrew  Chaplin,  who  before  the 
Irish  Rebellion  was  minister  of  the  congregation  of 
Six  Mile  Bridge,  County  Clare,  Ire] and,  tells  that  John 
Jasper  of  Ballycase,  County  Clare,  lived  there  with 
Marie  his  wife,  and  that  Margaret,  daughter  of  John 
Jasper  of  Ballycase,  was  lawfully  married  according 
to  the  rites  of  the  Church  of  England  unto  Nicasias 


National  Advance  and  Royal  Charters.        23 

Vanderscure,  some  time  of  the  parish  of  Kilrush  in 
said  County,  and  that  said  Nicasias  and  Margaret  lived 
in  parish  of  Killconrie  before  the  Irish  Rebellion.  On 
June  6,  1643,  Capt.  William  Penn  and  Margaret  Van 
der  Schuren,  widow,  were  married  at  St.  Martin's, 
Ludgate.  Her  former  marriage  does  not  appear  to 
have  been  known  to  Jenkins  when  he  wrote  the  gene- 
alogy. The  Admiral  set  up  a  claim  for  money  advanced 
to  the  Crown,  and  this,  at  his  death,  September  16, 1670, 
came  to  his  executor,  the  Founder,  who  had  been  moved 
by  Quaker  preaching  at  various  times,  and,  after  en- 
gaging in  various  careers  having  no  connection  with 
Quakerism,  had  joined  the  Society  of  Friends  about 
1668,  in  the  course  of,  or  between,  two  sojourns  in 
Ireland.  A  story  published  anonymously  in  London  in 
1682  of  his  immorality  just  before  becoming  a  Quaker 
was  heard  by  William  Byrd  in  a  twisted  version,  and 
appears  in  Byrd's  History  of  the  Dividing  Line  [be- 
tween Virginia  and  North  Carolina]  rather  as  an  ex- 
planation of  Penn's  receiving  a  royal  grant.  As  such 
it  is  utterly  silly,  particularly  when,  as  in  Byrd's  ver- 
sion, the  mistress  of  the  Duke  of  Monmouth  is  made 
to  figure  as  the  woman  in  the  case,  which  certainly 
would  never  have  endeared  Penn  to  Monmouth  or  King 
Charles  II  (Monmouth's  father)  or  the  Duke  of  York. 
A  daughter  is  given  to  Penn,  of  whom  Byrd  says  that 
she  "had  beauty  enough  to  raise  her  to  be  a  duchess, 
and  continued  to  be  a  toast  full  thirty  years."  This 
was  Monmouth's  recognized  daughter,  Henrietta 
Crofts,  who  married  Charles,  Duke  of  Bolton,  in  1697, 
and  died  on  February  27, 1729-30.  Quakers,  with  more 
logic,  have  viewed  Penn's  success  in  obtaining  royal 
favor  as  a  miracle. 

With  the  money  claim  against  the  Crown,  and  the 
general  friendliness  of  the  Duke  of  York,  William 
Penn  saw  the  opportunity  to  obtain  what  was  deemed 
Crown  land,  but  was  occupied  by  the  Duke  rather  as 


24  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

the  Crown's  agent,  but  really  because  he  was  heir  pre- 
sumptive. Penn  therefore  petitioned  the  King*  for  a 
grant  of  the  land  north  of  Maryland,  bounded  on  the 
east  by  the  Delaware  River,  and  extending  westward 
as  far  as  Maryland  extended,  and  northward  as  far 
as  plantable.  It  is  probable  that  Charles  II,  who  had 
once  released  500  Quakers  from  imprisonment,  and 
was  at  heart  a  Roman  Catholic,  had  been  made  aware 
of  and  sympathized  with  the  object  of  securing  a  land 
for  religious  toleration.  When  the  petition  had  been 
referred  to  the  Committee  of  the  Privy  Council  for 
Trade  and  Plantations,  Penn  appeared  before  those 
Lords.  He  says  in  a  letter  of  August  14,  1683,  that  on 
that  occasion,  he  standing  at  the  chair  of  the  Lord 
President,  some  said  that  Lord  Baltimore  had  but  two 
degrees,  whereupon  the  Lord  President  (who  was  John 
Robartes,  Earl  of  Radnor)  turned  his  head  to  Penn, 
and  said  "Mr.  Penn,  will  not  three  degrees  serve  your 
turn?"  and  Penn  replied  "I  submit  both  the  what  and 
the  how  to  this  honourable  Board."  The  minutes  say 
that  he  declared  that  he  would  be  satisfied  with  three 
degrees,  and  would,  in  consideration,  release  the  debt 
or  part  of  it,  and  wait  for  the  balance  until  the  King 
could  better  pay  it. 

Cecil  Calvert,  second  Lord  Baltimore,  had  died  and 
been  succeeded  by  his  son  Charles,  who  had  gone  to 
Maryland  before  Penn  made  his  application.  The 
Duke  of  York  was  also  away  from  England.  Copies 
of  Penn's  petition  were  sent  to  the  agents  of  Lord  Bal- 
timore, and  to  Sir  John  Werden,  representing  the 
Duke  of  York.  Baltimore's  agents,  in  answer,  claimed 
the  Susquehanna  Fort — undoubtedly  the  one  marked 
on  the  map  printed  seven  years  before — as  the  boun- 
dary of  Maryland,  and  asked  that  Penn  and  his  people 
be  prohibited  from  furnishing  the  Indians  with  arms 
and  ammunition.  There  had  been  war  with  the  Sus- 
quehannocks  since  the  printing  of  the  map.    The  agents 


National.  Advance  and  Royal  Charters.        25 

asked  that  the  boundary  line  run  east  from  the  Fort 
to  the  Delaware  River,  and  west  from  the  Fort.  The 
Duke 's  agent,  Werden,  in  his  turn,  stated  that  the  land 
applied  for  had  been  held  as  an  appendix  and  part  of 
the  government  of  New  York,  and,  although  it  should 
not  prove  to  be  strictly  within  the  bounds  of  the  Duke 
of  York's  patent,  his  right  was  preferable  to  all  others. 
Penn  was  told  to  arrange  this  matter  with  the  Duke, 
and,  as  to  Maryland,  Penn  agreed  that  Susquehanna 
Fort  should  be  its  boundary,  and  that  he  be  subjected 
to  restrictions  as  to  furnishing  arms  or  ammunition 
to  Indians.  It  may  surprise  us  that  the  latter  stipula- 
tion does  not  appear  in  the  charter  granted  to  Penn, 
but  the  disregarding  of  Susquehanna  Fort  in  framing 
the  description  inserted  was  perfectly  fair.  Maryland 
extended  along  the  Susquehanna  River  or  Chesapeake 
Bay  to  the  fortieth  parallel,  and  would  go  beyond  the 
Fort,  if  that  was  south  of  the  parallel ;  so,  if  any  occu- 
pation of  the  site  of  the  Fort  was  an  encroachment  upon 
what  the  King  was  free  to  grant,  Penn  could  ask 
abandonment.  Penn  obtained  the  consent  of  the  Duke 
to  a  grant  north  of  the  actual  colony  of  which  New 
Castle  was  the  chief  town,  such  grant  extending  north- 
ward and  westward  as  far  as  the  King  should  please, 
"beginning  about  the  latitude  of  forty  degrees."  If 
Penn's  land  therefore  ran  north  from  40°,  he  would 
be  clear  of  any  claim  by  either  Lord  Baltimore  or  the 
Duke,  and  need  not  care  who  had  the  right  on  the  south. 
A  month  later,  having  seen  a  description  drafted  by 
Penn,  Werden  wrote  that  it  was  the  Duke's  intention 
that  the  southern  limits  should  be  twenty  or  thirty 
miles  above  New  Castle,  which  distance,  Werden  said, 
"we  guess  may  reach  as  far  as  the  beginning  of  the 
fortieth  degree."  The  last  words  "beginning  of  the 
fortieth  degree,"  may  have  been  merely  an  awkward 
rendering  of  the  Duke's  words,  and  intended  for  "as 
far  as  the  beginning  spoken  of  by  the  Duke;  namely, 


26  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

forty  degrees."  Werden  may  have  been  one  of  those 
who  called  the  space  north  of  the  fortieth  parallel ' '  the 
fortieth  degree,"  having  in  mind  that  at  such  parallel 
the  latitude  begins  to  be  forty  degrees  and  so  many 
minutes.  In  fact,  although  this  is  not  found  to  have 
been  contended,  the  ' '  beginning  of  the  fortieth  degree ' ' 
could  mean  the  part  of  it  first  reached  in  a  description 
reading  downwards.  Those  who  say  that  Werden 
meant  the  thirty-ninth  parallel,  that  is  the  end  or  com- 
pletion reading  northwards  of  thirty-nine  of  the  ninety 
spaces  from  the  equator  to  the  north  pole,  must  see 
that  in  such  case  Werden,  in  explaining  the  Duke's  in- 
tention, would  be  contradicting  what  the  Duke  had  said ; 
moreover,  it  being  pretty  accurately  known  how  near 
Cape  May  was  to  the  thirty-ninth  parallel,  and  that 
it  was  a  long  distance  from  Cape  May  to  New  Castle, 
Werden  could  not  have  been  looking  for  that  parallel 
twenty  or  thirty  miles  above  New  Castle.  As  twenty- 
three  miles  due  north  of  the  old  centre  of  that  town 
would  actually  carry  any  location  clearly  above  the 
fortieth  parallel,  we  must  conclude  that  he  had  the 
latter  in  mind,  with  remarkably  accurate  data  concern- 
ing it,  in  saying  twenty  or  thirty  miles  above  New 
Castle. 

Other  people's  opinion  was  more  agreeable  to  Penn, 
who  became  dissatisfied  with  the  amount  of  river 
frontage  proposed  for  him,  that  is  below  the  unnavi- 
gable  rapids  at  Trenton.  He  was  willing  to  leave 
twelve  miles  between  his  land  and  New  Castle,  and  he 
expressed  the  opinion,  so  Werden  wrote  to  the  secre- 
tary of  the  Committee,  that  twelve  miles  "would  fall 
under" — an  expression  similar  to  " subjacet"  in  the 
Baltimore  patent — "the  beginning  of  the  fortieth  de- 
gree." Certainly,  it  was  not  being  urged  in  favor  of 
a  new  starting-point  that  it  would  be  south  of  the 
fortieth  parallel,  and  so  conflict  with  the  boundaries  of 
Maryland.    Penn  was  meaning  the  same  scientific  line 


National,  Advance  and  Royal  Charters.        27 

as  Werden:  and,  after  the  expression  "the  beginning 
of"  was  finally  put  into  the  charter,  it  was  for  years 
deemed  by  everybody  either  as  equivalent  to  "the  ex- 
tremity of"  or  as  surplusage.  Markham  at  Upland  in 
1682  had  no  other  view;  for,  while  the  northern  boun- 
dary of  Pennsylvania  was  similarly  fixed  at  "the  be- 
ginning of  the  three  and  fortieth  degree,"  he,  accord- 
ing to  his  account,  told  those  present  that  Penn's  grant 
ran  to  latitude  43d  00'.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  before  Werden 's  last  mentioned  letter  to  the  sec- 
retary, Penn  had  been  told  that  New  Castle  was  much 
nearer  the  fortieth  parallel  than  it  is:  in  fact  Lord 
Baltimore's  commissioners  eighteen  months  later  made 
it  out  to  be  about  ten  minutes  of  latitude  nearer.  After 
much  pertinacity,  Penn  seems  to  have  convinced  every- 
body. Lord  Chief  Justice  North  wrote  a  description, 
making,  as  appears  from  the  certified  copy  used  in  the 
case  of  Penn  v.  Lord  Baltimore,  the  southern  boun- 
dary the  straight  line  which  he  followed  Werden  by 
calling  "the  beginning  of  the  fortieth  degree,"  but 
excepting  all  lands  in  the  possession  of  the  Duke 
within  twelve  miles  of  New  Castle.  This  exception 
was  afterwards  crossed  out,  and  into  the  description 
was  interlineated  the  fixing  of  the  starting-point  at  the 
distance  of  twelve  miles  northward  of  New  Castle,  and 
also  there  was  an  alteration  of  the  southern  boundary 
to  a  circle  drawn  at  twelve  miles  distance  from  that 
town  north  and  westward  "unto  the  beginning  of  the 
fortieth  degree  and  thereon  by  a  straight  line  west- 
wards to  the  limit  of  longitude."  Hazard's  Annals  of 
Pennsylvania  has  combined  both  the  original  and  al- 
teration as  the  Chief  Justice's  description.  The  inter- 
lineations and  alterations  appear  to  have  been  the  work 
of  Werden.  On  January  15, 1680-1,  the  boundaries  with 
the  alterations  of  Werden  were  read  and  approved  by 
the  Committee.  It  will  be  seen  that,  as  the  Delaware 
runs,  the  frontage  thus  withdrawn  from  the  operation 


28  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

of  Lord  Baltimore's  charter,  i.e.  lying  between  the  end 
of  twelve  miles  from  New  Castle  and  the  fortieth  paral- 
lel, was  about  twenty-six  miles,  but  the  agents  of  his 
Lordship,  and  in  fact  the  other  people  in  England,  had 
no  such  knowledge  of  the  course  of  the  river  and  the 
location  of  the  parallel  as  to  appreciate  this.  If  the 
twelve-mile  circle  would  indeed  strike  the  parallel,  his 
Lordship  would  be  losing  at  most  a  trifle  of  frontage 
not  worth  considering.  The  officials,  on  the  other 
hand,  were  convinced  that  the  frontage  south,  as  well 
as  north,  of  the  parallel  was  not  Lord  Baltimore's,  but 
the  King's,  to  give  to  whom  he  pleased,  or  the  Duke's, 
yielded  by  his  consenting  to  the  gift.  As  to  the  land 
west  of  the  semicircle,  or  arc,  of  twelve  mile  radius, 
nothing  within  Lord  Baltimore's  lines  was  supposed 
to  be  taken  from  him,  for  that  semicircle,  or  arc,  would, 
it  was  said,  reach  the  fortieth  parallel,  which  would 
from  the  point  of  intersection  be  the  southern  boundary 
of  the  new  province. 

While  the  treatment  of  the  words  "the  beginning 
of"  as  surplusage  would  have  made  Penn's  southern 
boundary,  for  nearly  all  the  length,  recede  from  the 
state's  present  line,  the  northern  boundary  would  have 
been  recognized  as  running  along  the  forty-third  par- 
allel through  the  present  territory  of  New  York  from 
the  point  north  of  the  source  of  the  Delaware  to  the 
Niagara  Eiver,  and  the  sites  of  St.  Johnsville,  Rich- 
field, Waterville,  Cazenovia,  Auburn,  Geneva,  and 
Buffalo  would  have  been  in  Pennsylvania  with  three 
times  the  frontage  on  Lake  Erie  which  our  Common- 
wealth afterwards  bought.  With  the  question  of  the 
northern  boundary,  this  history  is  not  concerned. 

As  finally  issued,  the  patent  to  William  Penn  called 
for  the  tract  bounded  on  the  east  by  the  Delaware 
River  "from  twelve  miles  distance  northward  of  New 
Castle  towne  unto  the  three  and  fortieth  degree  of 
northern  latitude,"  if  the  river  should  extend  so  far 


National  Advance  and  Royal  Charters.        29 

northward,  but  if  not,  then  by  the  river  to  its  source, 
and  thence  by  a  meridian  line  ' '  unto  the  said  three  and 
fortieth  degree,"  "the  said  land  to  extend  westwards 
five  degrees  in  longitude  to  be  computed  from  the  said 
easterne  bounds, ' '  and  "to  be  bounded  on  the  north  by 
the  beginning  of  the  three  and  fortieth  degree  of  north- 
ern latitude  and  on  the  south  by  a  circle  drawn  at 
twelve  miles  distance  from  New  Castle  northwards  and 
westwards,  unto  the  beginning  of  the  fortieth  degree 
of  northerne  latitude  and  then  by  a- straight  line  west- 
wards to  the  limitt  of  longitude  above  mentioned." 

The  description  of  the  arc  of  the  circle  at  the  south- 
eastern corner,  viz:  "a  circle  drawn  at  twelve  miles 
distance  from  New  Castle,"  plainly  means,  as  Lord 
Hardwicke  afterwards  said,  and  as  Penn  intended,  the 
arc  of  a  circle  having  a  radius  of  twelve  miles  with  the 
heart  of  the  little  village  of  New  Castle  as  a  centre. 
Therefore,  we  see  by  our  modern  maps,  as  Baltimore 
and  Markham  saw  by  astronomical  observations,  that 
the  boundary  lines  do  not  close  together.  King 
Charles,  contrary  to  "he  never  says  a  foolish  thing," 
had  officially  uttered  nonsense. 

The  date  of  the  charter,  or,  more  properly,  letters 
patent,  was  the  fourth  of  March  in  the  thirty-third  year 
of  the  reign  (1680),  a  day  which  in  Scotland  was  called 
March  14,  1681. 


CHAPTER   II. 

The  Ascertainment  of  the  Southern  Boundary. 

The  third  Lord  Baltimore  and  Markham — The 
Duke  confirms  Pennsylvania,  and  grants  Delaware 
to  Penn — Further  proceedings  of  the  two  Propri- 
etaries— Decision  of  Privy  Council — Advantages 
of  the  Penns  in  the  subsequent  struggle — Settle- 
ment of  Nottingham — Maryland  takes  the  offen- 
sive— Agreement  of  1732,  and  failure  to  carry  it 
out — Temporary  line  run — Case  of  Penn  et  al.  v. 
Lord  Baltimore  and  final  determination. 

In  the  uncertaincy  of  astronomical  observations  for 
latitude  and  longitude,  it  was  necessary  that  the  rela- 
tion of  localities  to  the  equator  and  the  central  meridian 
should  be  settled  upon  by  agreement.  For  approxi- 
mations within  a  few  miles,  the  statement  of  maps 
might  be  accepted,  but  when,  as  upon  the  Delaware 
River,  there  was  the  question  of  the  ownership  of  a 
headland  or  of  the  mouth  of  a  creek,  nothing  would  be 
authoritative  but  an  instrument  of  the  latest  improve- 
ment together  with  the  latest  book  of  calculations,  and 
it  was  always  conceivable  that  something  less  clumsy 
than  the  method  of  the  time  might  in  future  be  devised, 
and  show  that  the  determination  had  been  incorrect  by 
quite  a  distance.  It  would  result,  that,  unless  there 
was  to  be  an  intolerable  shifting  of  boundaries,  a  line 
should  be  arbitrarily  fixed  by  the  parties  interested, 
which  neither  side  should  be  allowed  to  gainsay.  A 
letter  was  issued  by  the  King  less  than  a  month  after 
the  patent  to  William  Penn,  and  dated  April  2  in  the 


Ascertainment  of  the  Southern  Boundary.    31 

33rd  year  of  the  reign  (1681),  recommending  Penn  to 
Lord  Baltimore's  good  neighbourliness,  and  recom- 
mending as  conducive  to  good  neighbourhood  that  Bal- 
timore appoint  persons  to  make  in  conjunction  with 
Penn's  agent  a  division  according  to  the  degree  of 
north  latitude  by  finding  landmarks.  Lord  Baltimore 
was  then  residing  in  Maryland. 

He  was  Charles  Calvert,  the  third  Baron.  Ready  to 
extend  courtesy,  he  invited  to  his  house  Penn's  deputy, 
Markham,  who  remained  there  ill  for  three  weeks :  and 
likewise  this  Roman  Catholic  nobleman  later  attended 
Penn  to  Friends '  Meetings  in  Maryland,  and  sent  mili- 
tary escort  to  wait  for  him.  The  Baron,  with  all  his 
politeness,  was  neither  easy-going  nor  weak,  but  care- 
ful of  his  rights,  positive,  spirited,  expecting  and  re- 
ceiving deference,  not  only  in  Maryland,  but  in  neigh- 
bouring provinces  also,  as  almost  the  only  person  of 
his  rank  then  sojourning  in  America.  He  was  not 
politic,  not  one  to  take  into  account  that  the  Quaker 
with  whom  he  had  to  deal  possessed  the  favor  of  the 
King  and  the  Duke  of  York,  while  he  himself,  although 
a  Roman  Catholic,  had  no  influence  with  either. 

By  appointment  of  Lord  Baltimore,  made  after  Mark- 
ham's  visit  to  him,  he  and  Markham  were  to  meet  at 
Augustine  Herman's  on  Bohemia  River  on  June  10, 
1682.  Baltimore  sent  commissioners,  and,  Markham  not 
appearing,  they  took  observations  during  the  next  seven 
days,  making  Herman 's  house  ' '  to  lye  in  the  latitude  of 
39  d.  &  45  m."  This  meant  that  Lord  Baltimore's 
charter  called  for  an  extent  northward  seventeen  and 
a  half  miles  further,  or,  as  his  commissioners  reported, 
at  least  fifteen  miles.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  observa- 
tion was  more  favorable  to  Penn  than  present  calcu- 
lations, which  place  the  40th  parallel  more  than  thirty- 
five  miles  north  of  the  site  of  Herman's  house.  The 
mouth  of  the  Octorara  Creek  hereafter  mentioned  is 
only  about  eleven  miles  more  northerly  than  Herman's 


32  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

house.  The  commissioners  went  from  that  house  to 
New  Castle,  about  twenty  miles  to  the  northeast,  and, 
there,  on  June  27,  made  an  observation  with  a  sextile, 
of  six  or  seven  feet  radius,  sent  by  Markham  from 
New  York,  and  belonging  to  Col.  Lewis  Morris.  Lord 
Baltimore's  Narrative  (Penna.  Mag.  Hist.,  Vol.  VI,  p. 
412  &ct.)  says  that  the  latitude  of  the  town  was  thus 
found  to  be  "thirty-nine  degrees  forty  odd  minutes." 
This  may  mean  forty  minutes  and  a  few  seconds.  The 
errors  possible  in  observations  will  be  seen  when  we 
read  Lord  Baltimore's  statement  that  on  Sep.  24,  1682, 
his  people  and  Richard  Noble,  a  Quaker,  by  the  same 
sextile  found  Upland  (now  Chester),  which  is  about 
twelve  miles  more  northerly  than  New  Castle,  to  be 
39°  47'  5"  N.  Markham,  who  did  not  take  part,  quoted, 
in  his  Answer  to  the  Narrative,  Haig's  notes  that  he 
was  told  39°  45'.  The  observation,  whether  the  minutes 
were  45  or  47,  showed  that  a  circle  around  New  Castle 
of  twelve  miles  radius  would  not  come  within  fourteen 
miles  at  the  very  least  of  touching  the  40th  parallel. 
Nor  would  there  have  been  much  closer  approach  to  it, 
if  the  twelve  miles  distance  northward  from  New  Castle 
of  the  starting-point  on  the  river  had  been  measured 
on  a  longitudinal  line,  and  the  circle  had  been  drawn 
with  a  radius  of  the  distance  of  that  point  from  the 
town ;  a  meaning  which  was  not  intended  by  either  Penn 
or  whoever,  King  or  official,  read  the  charter  before  it 
passed,  but  which  might  have  been  claimed,  had  the 
Duke  held  on  to  the  land  around  New  Castle.  As  to 
the  thirty-ninth  parallel,  which  in  later  years  was 
claimed  to  be  meant  by  "the  beginning  of  the  fortieth 
c]egree?"  the  circle,  even  if  carried  around  to  the  south 
would  not  have  come  within  seventeen  miles  of  that 
parallel  under  the  most  favourable  elements  for  the 
calculation.  In  the  course  of  a  conference  between  Bal- 
timore, Markham.  and  their  attendants  on  the  day 
after  the  observation,. nobody  suggested  that  "the  be- 


Ascertainment  of  the  Southern  Boundary.    33 

ginning  of  the  fortieth  degree"  was  anything  else  than 
the  fortieth  parallel.  The  Maryland  surveyor  laugh- 
ingly remarked:  "His  Majesty  must  have  long  com- 
passes": the  naval  veteran,  Markham,  replied  that  he 
trusted  the  gentlemen  would  "not  limit  his  Majesty's 
compasses. ' '  Well  would  it  have  been  for  the  Calverts, 
if  the  King's  compasses  had  been  considered  as  mark- 
ing the  correct  distance  of  the  parallel  north  of  New 
Castle,  and  the  Delaware  frontage  had  been  let  go ! 

Markham,  on  this  occasion,  suggested  an  interpreta- 
tion of  Penn's  charter  which  made  the  lines  of  the 
figure  meet,  and  which  was  decidedly  favorable  to 
Lord  Baltimore,  as  it  gave  him  in  the  interior  the  land 
up  to  the  astronomically  fixed  fortieth  parallel,  the 
interpretation  being  that  the  circle  passing  through  a 
point  on  the  river  twelve  miles  north  of  New  Castle 
was  not  to  be  described  around  New  Castle,  but  have 
as  its  centre  the  fortieth  degree,  probably  meaning  the 
point  in  the  fortieth  parallel  due  north  of  the  point  on 
the  river.  Thus  on  a  map  with  the  north  at  the  top, 
the  starting-point  of  Pennsylvania  on  the  river  would 
be  the  bottom  of  a  circle,  instead  of  rather  below  the 
top  of  one;  and  the  shape  of  the  Province  would  be 
pretty  much  a  trapezoid  with  a  bump  on  its  south- 
eastern corner,  instead  of  a  trapezoid  with  a  piece 
bitten  out.  This  solution,  which  was  not  agreed  to, 
was  certainly  not  Penn's  or  the  Duke's  interpretation, 
as  will  be  seen  from  the  Duke's  deeds  of  Aug.  24,  1682, 
unknown  to  Americans  in  September,  but  had  Balti- 
more agreed,  the  question  would  have  been  settled  at 
once,  to  the  saving  of  trouble,  expense,  and  bloodshed ; 
for  Markham  was  fully  empowered  to  act  for  Penn, 
and  the  latter  would  not  have  been  allowed  to  repudiate 
the  settlement.  Markham  declined  to  proceed  up  the 
river  until  the  instrument  should  show  40°,  to  put  the 
boundary  there,  but  promised  to  join  in  ascertaining 
that  latitude  at  the  heads  of  any  rivers  "respecting" 


34  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

(i.e.  falling  into)  Chesapeake  Bay,  apparently  to  run 
the  division  for  that  basin.  Baltimore  and  he  parted,  he 
refusing  to  surrender  anything  on  the  Delaware  north 
of  twelve  miles  above  New  Castle.  Baltimore  went  to 
Marcus  Hook,  or  Chichester,  and  warned  the  people 
not  to  pay  quit  rents  to  Penn,  and  announced  the  in- 
tention of  returning  and  taking  possession.  This  so 
disturbed  the  people  there  that  Markham,  who  had 
packed  up  to  go  to  the  Chesapeake,  thought  it  better 
not  to  leave,  and  so  wrote  to  Lord  Baltimore  (letter 
without  date  printed  in  Penna.  Archives,  1st  Series, 
Vol.  I,  p.  39),  who  was  waiting  for  him  at  New  Castle 
on  the  26th.  It  appears  that,  after  receiving  this  letter, 
Lord  Baltimore,  perhaps  at  New  Castle,  or  carrying 
the  instrument  to  the  Elk  River,  took  another  observa- 
tion, for  subsequently  he  mentions  one  taken  on  the 
27th.  About  a  month  later,  Markham 's  powers  ceased, 
Penn  arriving  at  some  point  twelve  miles  above  New 
Castle,  and  therefore  within  the  jurisdiction,  probably 
on  October  28,  if  he  did  not,  before  stopping  at  New 
Castle,  pass  on  to  Upland  on  the  24,  the  date  which  he 
gives  for  his  arrival,  but  which  is  supposed  to  refer  to 
his  coming  within  the  capes — but  Penn  was  not  very 
accurate  about  dates. 

Markham  had  declared  that  he  was  accountable  only 
to  the  King  and  the  Duke  of  York,  not  knowing  that 
the  Duke's  rights  had  been  already  transferred  by  him 
to  Penn.  In  those  days,  it  took  nearly  two  months 
for  a  letter  to  go  from  England  to  Pennsylvania,  unless 
the  ship  carrying  it  came  directly  to  New  York  or  the 
Delaware,  and  the  opportunities  for  transmission,  with 
or  without  much  time  being  taken  after  the  end  of  the 
ocean  voyage,  were  not  frequent. 

By  deed  dated  Aug.  21,  1682,  the  Duke  relinquished 
to  Penn  and  his  heirs  and  assigns  all  estate,  right,  title, 
interest,  rents,  services,  claims,  duties,  payments,  prop- 
erty, claim,  and  demand  in  the  lands,  islands,  tene- 


ASCERTAINMENT    OF    THE    SOUTHERN    BOUNDARY.      35 

ments,  hereditaments,  and  other  things  comprised  in 
King  Charles  II 's  patent  to  Penn  ''within  the  bounds 
and  limits  therein  mentioned." 

The  Duke,  furthermore,  by  two  deeds  dated  Au- 
gust 24,  1682,  conveyed  to  Penn  and  his  heirs  arid 
assigns  the  territory  measured  by  a  twelve  miles  radius 
around  New  Castle  on  the  western  side  of  the  Dela- 
ware and  the  territory  to  the  south  of  that  circle  not 
occupied  by  Maryland.  Thus  did  William  Penn  ac- 
quire what  is  now  the  state  of  Delaware,  which  was 
spoken  of  from  that  time  until  the  American  Revolu- 
tion as  "the  Territories,"  "the  Counties  thereunto  [to 
Pennsylvania]  annexed,"  "the  Country  of  New  Castle 
and  tracts  depending  thereon,"  or  "the  Counties  of 
New  Castle,  Kent,  and  Sussex  on  Delaware,"  or,  more 
commonly,  as  they  were  popularly  called,  "the  Lower 
Counties."  One  difference  there  was  between  the 
patent  for  Pennsylvania  and  the  two  deeds  for  the 
Lower  Counties :  by  the  former,  Penn  and  his  heirs  and 
assigns  were  to  hold  the  land  directly  of  the  King;  by 
the  latter,  they  were  to  hold  of  the  Duke  of  York  as 
intermediate,  or  mesne,  lord,  who  was  to  receive  an 
annual  rent  of  five  shillings  for  the  land  around  New 
Castle,  and  of  a  red  rose  and  half  the  year's  profits  for 
the  land  south. 

Penn  says  that  he  gave  up  extent  to  Lake  Ontario, 
being  thought  to  be  getting  a  front  on  the  Chesa- 
peake. In  the  summer  of  1682,  he  appears  to  have 
learned  either  from  reports  from  Pennsylvania,  or 
from  a  dependable  statement  of  the  latitude  of  Wat- 
kin's  Point  and  the  length  of  the  Bay,  that  the  latter 
did  not  extend  as  far  north  as  40° ;  so  that  if  he  was 
confined  to  what  was  north  of  the  fortieth  parallel,  he 
was  shut  off  from  the  Bay.  He  therefore  sought  the 
aid  of  the  friendly  King.  The  view  was  not  unreason- 
able that,  as  astronomers  could  not  come  to  an  exact 
conclusion,  the  King  could  fix  what  should  be  taken  as 


36  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

the  parallel.  Without  some  such  control,  Lord  Balti- 
more seemed  determined  to  run  no  line  that  would  be 
a  compromise.  By  adhering  to  the  letter  of  his  charter, 
he  would,  however,  get  more  land  than  had  been  in- 
tended to  be  given  to  his  father.  In  1632,  when  two 
full  degrees  were  calculated  to  amount  to  only  one 
hundred  and  twenty  miles,  and  Watkin's  Point  was 
deemed  to  be  above  north  latitude  38°,  the  second  Lord 
was  supposed  to  be  getting  less  than  two  full  degrees, 
possibly  one  hundred  and  fifteen  miles  at  most,  yet  by 
a  degree  being  found  to  be  seventy,  instead  of  sixty, 
miles,  and  "Watkin's  Point  being  some  miles  below 
North  latitude  38°,  possession  by  his  successor  to  the 
fortieth  parallel  would  make  an  estate  of  no  less  than 
one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  and  perhaps  more.  The 
question  whether  the  Calvert  family  could  thus  gain 
so  much  beyond  the  original  idea,  had  been  talked 
about  in  the  Committee  for  Trade  and  Plantations 
when  Perm's  application  for  a  grant  was  under  con- 
sideration. Since  then  it  was  appearing  that  such  gain 
by  the  Calverts  would  block  Penn's  colony  from  any 
front  on  Chesapeake  Bay,  which  the  promoter  thought 
a  necessity.  To  public  officials,  even  without  any  de- 
sire to  favor  Penn,  it  was  not  hard  in  the  circumstances, 
to  take  a  view  that  would  facilitate  the  planting  of  a 
new  colony,  and  thereby  the  further  development  of 
England's  American  territory.  Penn  obtained  in 
August,  1682,  and  took  across  the  ocean,  another  royal 
letter  to  Lord  Baltimore.  This  recommended  him  to 
fix  his  northern  bounds  by  measuring  at  sixty  miles 
a  degree  two  degrees  from  Watkin's  Point  as  settled 
upon  by  the  Commissioners  from  Virginia  and  Mary- 
land. 

This  royal  letter  did  not  mean,  any  more  than  the 
preceding  one,  to  allow  the  Calverts  any  of  what  had 
been  the  Dutch  possessions:  but  the  third  Lord  Balti- 
more felt  strongly  that  the  land  on  Delaware  Bay  and 


Ascertainment  of  the  Southern  Boundary.    37 

River  to  40'  north  was  rightfully  his,  and,  while,  in 
the  reports  in  the  Maryland  Archives  of  his  conferences 
with  Penn,  it  appears  as  if  Baltimore  was  contending 
as  a  preliminary  for  his  extent  on  the  Chesapeake  and 
Susquehanna,  yet  ever  and  anon  he  and  his  heirs,  until 
the  final  settlement,  were  recurring  to  this  hopeless 
claim  to  the  country  of  New  Castle  &ct. 

When  Baltimore  and  Penn  first  met  after  the  latter 's 
arrival,  the  former,  according  to  his  Narrative,  was 
inclined  to  think  reasonable,  although  he  asked  time  to 
consider,  Penn's  request  for  an  opening  on  the  Chesa- 
peake. When,  however,  in  formal  conference,  in  pres- 
ence of  attendants,  Penn  produced  the  royal  missive, 
Baltimore,  no  doubt  angered,  did  not  flinch  from  in- 
sisting upon  his  right  up  to  the  40th  parallel,  wherever 
it  might  actually  be.  Penn  tried  to  induce  him  to  be 
satisfied  with  two  degrees  measured  at  seventy  miles 
each,  or  with  two  and  a  half  measured  at  sixty.  Bal- 
timore mentions,  but  Penn  does  not,  Penn's  request, 
that,  if  Maryland  must  extend  to  the  40th  parallel,  that 
parallel  be  ascertained  by  accepting  as  true  the  latitude, 
viz:  37°  5',  so  long  attributed  to  Cape  Charles,  but  then 
thought  far  from  correct,  and  by  measuring  from  Cape 
Charles,  perhaps  at  seventy  miles  a  degree.  Baltimore 
objected  to  any  other  basis  than  the  surest  contem- 
porary astronomical  observation.  On  Feb.  28,  1682-3, 
three  persons  employed  by  Lord  Baltimore  took  an 
observation  on  Palmer's  Island  with  a  sextant  of  about 
ten  feet  radius,  and  found  the  latitude  39°  44'.  This 
was  disclosed  to  Penn  by  Lord  Baltimore  at  New  Castle, 
when,  on  May  29  and  30,  they  had  further  conference. 
Lord  Baltimore  retired  from  that  conference  announc- 
ing that  he  would  himself  make  further  observations 
for  the  boundary.  Penn  sent  after  him  in  writing  an 
offer,  which  he  had  made  verbally,  to  join  in  the  obser- 
vations, if  Baltimore  would  fix  a  "gentleman's  price" 
per  mile,  at  which  Penn  could  buy  the  land  found  to 


38  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

belong  to  Baltimore  north  of  the  head  of  Chesapeake 
Bay.  Had  Baltimore  brought  himself  to  bargaining, 
he  could  have  secured  good  terms  from  Perm,  to  whom 
some  frontage  on  the  Chesapeake  and  quiet  possession 
east  of  the  Susquehanna  and  along  the  Delaware  were 
worth  everything  west  of  the  Susquehanna.  Baltimore 
did  offer  soon  afterwards  a  Chesapeake  frontage  in  ex- 
change for  all  the  Lower  Counties,  but  this  naturally 
was  refused  by  Penn. 

No  further  meeting  between  the  two  Proprietaries 
was  held,  and,  in  a  letter  of  Aug.  14,  1683,  to  the  Lords 
of  the  Committee  for  Trade  and  Plantations,  Penn  says 
that,  instead  of  notice  being  sent  of  a  day,  expected  to 
be  in  September,  when  Lord  Baltimore  would  go  to  the 
head  of  the  Bay,  an  observation  had  been  taken,  a  line 
run,  and  trees  marked  without  notice  to  Penn,  and  a 
demand  had  been  made.  This  does  not  mean  that  the 
demand  followed  the  actual  marking  of  the  line  north 
or  east  of  the  ground  demanded,  and  indeed  the  de- 
mand may  have  been  that  made  by  proclamation  issued 
about  the  time  of  the  conference,  as  to  which  his  Lord- 
ship had  prevaricated;  first,  on  complaint  made,  deny- 
ing the  issuing  of  the  proclamation,  and  afterwards, 
on  its  being  proved,  explaining  that  proclamation  as 
but  a  matter  of  form  to  keep  alive  his  claim.  We  learn 
from  a  proclamation  made  in  1722  by  the  Lieutenant- 
Governor  of  Maryland  that  an  observation  was  taken 
at  the  mouth  of  Octorara  Creek  on  Sep.  15,  1683,  the 
latitude  of  that  place  being  found  to  be  39°  41'  19", 
from  which  fact  denial  was  made  of  the  third  Lord  hav- 
ing ever  caused  an  east  line  from  that  place  to  be  run 
as  the  northern  boundary.  That  Lord  Baltimore  was 
in  that  vicinity  about  that  time,  is  clear  from  a  note 
with  his  initials  in  the  margin  of  the  record  in  the 
Maryland  Archives  of  the  commission  about  to  be 
mentioned,  "given  to  my  cousin  Talbot  when  I  was 
last  up  the  Bay/'    Whether  Baltimore  then  started  a 


Ascertainment  of  the  Southern  Boundary.    39 

line,  and  blazed  trees,  as  one  story  goes,  is  not  impor- 
tant, for  he  persisted  in  claiming  to  the  parallel,  which 
he  knew  must  lie  further  north  than  the  mouth  of  the 
Schuylkill  River.  He  commissioned  George  Talbot, 
under  date  of  Sep.  17,  1683,  to  go  to  the  Schuylkill  at 
the  Delaware  River,  and  demand  possession  of  the  land 
along  said  river  [i.e.  Delaware]  lying  south  of  the  40th 
degree,  adding  the  words:  "according  to  an  east  line 
run  out  from  two  observations  one  taken  10  June  1682, 
the  other  27  7ber,  1682,  in  obedience  to  his  Majesty's 
commands  expressed  in  letter  of  2  April,  1681."  It 
may  be  concluded  that  if  the  second  of  these  observa- 
tions mentioned  contradicted  the  first,  Lord  Baltimore 
took  the  mean,  and  that  the  mean  located  the  fortieth 
parallel  a  little  below  the  southern  point  of  Philadelphia 
as  then  laid  out,  in  other  words  well  above  the  mouth 
of  the  Schuylkill,  in  the  not  very  precise  measurements 
of  those  years.  The  reason  for  relying  on  those  obser- 
vations was,  doubtless,  their  having  been  taken  after 
full  notice  to  Markham,  and  in  default  of  his  atten- 
dance. That  the  line  mentioned  had  actually  been  run, 
is  not  necessarily  meant  by  the  words  of  the  commis- 
sion or  by  Talbot's  remark  that  he  was  authorized  to 
go  wherever  the  line  took  him,  Penn  making  the  point 
that  the  commission  did  not  authorize  Talbot  to  cross 
the  Schuylkill.  Talbot  went  to  the  City  of  Philadel- 
phia, or  at  least  east  of  the  Schuylkill,  and,  on  Sep- 
tember 24,  in  the  absence  of  William  Penn,  demanded 
of  Nicholas  More,  treated  as  Perm's  deputy,  all  land 
lying  on  the  west  side  of  the  Delaware  River  and  south 
of  40°  north  latitude.  Penn  set  forth  on  Oct.  4  the 
reasons  for  not  complying  with  the  demand,  speaking  of 
the  observations  and  line  run  accordingly  as  performed 
by  Lord  Baltimore  and  his  agents  only,  and  not  by  the 
two  parties  jointly,  as  required  by  the  King's  letter. 
There  may  have  been  an  attempt  by  Talbot  at  a  line. 
In  January,  Baltimore  sent  Capt.  James  Murfy  to  in- 


40  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

duce  the  people  of  the  disputed  region  to  accept  ten- 
ancy. In  further  contention  for  a  line  which  struck 
the  Delaware  far  north  of  Naaman's  Creek  or  the  lati- 
tude of  the  mouth  of  the  Octorara,  Talbot,  calling  him- 
self his  Lordship's  Commissioner  for  Disposal  of 
Lands  in  New  Ireland  and  the  western  side  of  Delaware 
River,  made  proclamation  dated  Feb.  1,  1683-4,  "to  all 
persons  dwelling  on  the  western  side  of  Delaware  Bay 
and  River  between  the  Creeks  of  Schuylkill  and  Whore- 
kyll,"  offering  all  the  privileges  of  Marylanders  to 
those  who,  under  their  hands  and  seals,  promised  fidel- 
ity, and  offering  to  those  of  them  who  had  land  by  any 
title  a  confirmation  by  patent  sent  without  expense  at 
2s.  per  100A,  and  protection  from  all  arrears  to  his 
Lordship  or  any  one  else. 

It  appears  to  have  been  after  this  that  Talbot  ran 
or  completed  the  line  known  as  the  Octorara  line,  or 
Talbot's  line,  extending  from  the  mouth  of  the  Octorara 
to  the  Delaware  at  about  the  mouth  of  Naaman's  Creek. 
Samuel  Hollingsworth,  who  was  a  boy  nine  years  old, 
when,  in  1682,  he  was  brought  to  Pennsylvania  by  his 
father,  Valentine  Hollingsworth,  and  also  John  Mus- 
grave,  whom  Valentine  at  the  same  time  brought  as 
a  servant  thirteen  years  old,  made  affidavit  on  June  4, 
1735,  that  after  they  had  lived  about  a  year  at  Valen- 
tine's land  on  Shell-pot  Creek  about  three  miles  north- 
east of  the  present  Wilmington  (land  surveyed  Dec. 
27,  1683,  under  warrant  of  12mo.  10,  1682),  Talbot  and 
George  Oldfield  and  two  or  three  others  came  to  lodge 
there  one  cold  evening,  saying  that  they  had  come  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Octorara,  and  had  run  a  line  from 
thence,  and  intended  to  continue  it  to  the  Delaware  by 
Lord  Baltimore's  order  as  the  division  line  between 
him  and  Pennsylvania,  and  the  next  day  they  went  off 
to  continue  the  line  to  the  Delaware,  and  came  back 
that  night,  reporting  that  they  had  done  so;  further- 
more Hollingsworth  said  that  the  line  was  very  plain 


Ascertainment  of  the  Southern  Boundary.    41 

for  years,  trees  being  marked  high  up  by  men  on  horse- 
back. Lord  Baltimore,  in  a  commission  to  Talbot, 
dated  March  19,  1683  [end  of  year  by  Old  Style],  says 
"we  have  caused  two  observations  to  be  taken  at  two 
several  times  and  an  east  and  west  line  accordingly  to 
be  run  out  and  marked  at  great  disadvantage  to  ourself 
being  some  miles  south  of  the  northern  latitude  of 
40°." 

In  this  later  commission,  Talbot  was  required  to  take 
as  many  persons  as  he  should  think  convenient,  and 
go  to  the  Governor  of  Pennsylvania,  and  demand  all 
the  land  lying  on  the  west  side  of  the  Delaware  River 
and  Bay  and  seaboard  to  the  south  of  the  40th  degree, 
and  more  particularly  that  part  thereof  which  lieth  to 
southward  of  the  marked  line  aforesaid.  Talbot  took 
a  number  of  men,  and  went  into  New  Castle  County  to 
within  six  miles  northwest  of  New  Castle  town,  and 
at  the  bridge  across  the  Christiana  built  a  fort  on  the 
land  of  the  widow  Ogle  on  the  north  side  of  that  creek, 
raising  a  breastwork  of  trunks  of  trees,  and  palisading 
it.  When  the  Sheriff  and  several  magistrates  of  New 
Castle  County  demanded  Talbot's  authority  for  so 
doing,  Talbot  had  the  guns  and  muskets  of  the  garrison 
levelled  at  them,  and  read  his  commission  from  Lord 
Baltimore,  and  refused  to  evacuate.  Talbot  wrote  a 
letter  to  Penn  on  April  26,  1684,  making  the  demand 
as  specified  in  the  commission  of  March  19.  Penn  does 
not  refer  to  this  in  his  declaration  dated  4mo.  4,  in 
which  he  commanded  that  no  person  submit  to  Talbot 's 
taking  possession,  and  levying  war,  as  he  had  done 
and  threatened  to  do,  and  that  no  one  seat  any  lands 
within  Penn's  limits  without  his  warrant,  and  that  all 
magistrates,  officers,  and  inhabitants  continue  as  the 
Duke  had  placed  them,  and  seize  any  person  seducing 
the  people  of  the  Province  and  Territories  from  their 
obedience,  and  especially  seize  the  persons  engaged  in 
this  invasion.    The  fort  was  not  maintained  very  long. 


42  Chkonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

The  line  with  which  Lord  Baltimore  had  offered  to 
be  satisfied,  giving  him  the  Lower  Counties,  except  the 
little  piece  above  the  latitude  of  Naaman's  Creek,  was 
never  accepted  by  Penn,  but  the  western  fraction  of 
the  line  was  made  use  of  by  Penn's  representatives  to 
confine  Maryland  to  a  part  of  the  Susquehanna  far 
below  any  approximate  location  of  the  true  boundary. 
Baltimore's  great  mistake  of  physically  marking  what 
was  tentative  created  a  misunderstanding  when  the  cir- 
cumstances were  forgotten,  and  gave  the  opposite  party 
a  fact  upon  which  to  set  up  the  legal  plea  of  estoppel. 

The  fight  between  the  two  Proprietaries  being  trans- 
ferred to  London,  Penn  left  America  in  6mo.  (August), 
1684. 

Already  measures  had  been  taken  to  secure  for  Penn 
a  better  documentary  title  to  what  is  now  Delaware. 
The  bill  in  equity  of  the  Penns  against  Lord  Baltimore 
states  that  the  Duke  of  York  obtained  a  patent  from 
the  King  dated  March  22,  1682  (Old  Style,  and  there- 
fore after  the  Duke's  deeds  to  Penn),  for  the  town  and 
fort  of  New  Castle  and  the  land  within  the  compass  or 
circle  of  twelve  miles  about  the  said  town  lying  on  the 
Delaware  and  the  islands  in  the  river  and  also  the  tract 
on  the  river  and  bay  beginning  twelve  miles  south  of 
New  Castle  and  extending  to  Cape  Lopin.  The  bill  also 
said  that  the  Duke,  having  obtained  this  patent  for  the 
benefit  of  William  Penn,  handed  it  to  the  latter,  and 
that  it  was  then  (1735)  in  the  complainants'  (the 
Penns'  custody.  In  a  list  preserved  by  the  Historical 
Society  of  Pennsylvania  of  conveyances  affecting  the 
Penns'  dominions,  this  patent  seems  to  be  incorrectly 
noted  as  a  patent  to  William  Penn,  but  there  is  noted 
a  surrender  dated  April  10,  1683,  and  acknowledged 
by  the  Duke  of  York  three  days  later  before  William 
Beversham,  a  Master  in  Chancery,  whereby  the  Duke 
surrendered  the  said  territory  to  the  King.    This  would 


Ascertainment  of  the  Southern  Boundary.    43 

have  disposed  of  any  right  acquired  under  the  alleged 
patent,  subject,  it  would  seem,  to  Penn's  right  as  vassal, 
if  such  patent  was  valid,  but  the  surrender  may  be 
construed  as  relinquishing  mere  possession.  It  was  to 
clear  the  way  for  a  valid  patent,  as  to  which  the  bill  in 
equity  mentions  the  application  and  subsequent  pro- 
ceedings. On  April  17,  1683,  perhaps  while  a  project 
for  a  fresh  charter  to  the  Duke  was  pending,  the  Com- 
mittee for  Trade,  having  read  a  letter  from  Lord 
Baltimore,  requested  his  Eoyal  Highness  to  make  no 
conveyance  to  Penn  until  Baltimore's  bounds  were 
settled.  Early  in  1683,  a  warrant  for  a  patent  to  the 
Duke  was  issued,  but  Lord  Baltimore's  agent  peti- 
tioned that  such  a  patent  should  not  pass  the  great  seal 
until  the  King  should  be  satisfied  as  to  the  extent  of 
Maryland,  because  Maryland  included  the  town  of  New 
Castle  and  adjacent  country  mentioned  in  the  patent 
proposed.  On  May  31,  the  King  in  Council  referred 
the  whole  matter  to  the  Committee  for  Trade  and 
Plantations  for  examination  and  report.  The  Com- 
mittee, on  June  12.  called  before  them  the  agents  of 
Lord  Baltimore  and  of  Penn,  and  the  issue  was  raised 
whether  in  1632  the  Dutch  were  possessed  of  the  land 
in  question,  which  fact  Penn 's  agent  promised  to  prove. 
A  year  later,  the  Solicitor  for  the  Duke  of  York  ap- 
peared in  the  matter,  and  on  Sep.  30,  1684,  said  that 
the  proof  depended  upon  Penn  himself  coming  to  Eng- 
land, where  he  was  soon  expected.  The  matter  not 
having  been  disposed  of  before  Feb.  6,  1684-5,  when 
Charles  II  died,  and  the  Duke  of  York  became  King, 
the  Attorney-General  and  Solicitor-General  in  1717 
concluded  that  no  patent  to  James  for  the  Lower 
Counties  ever  passed  the  great  seal.  A  quo  warranto 
proceeding  was  begun  against  Lord  Baltimore,  inquir- 
ing into  the  validity  of  the  privileges  conferred  upon 
him  by  the  charter.  While  it  was  pending,  William 
Penn,  on  account  of  whom,  as  tenant,  the  matter  of 


44  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Baltimore's  petition  against  a  patent  for  the  Lower 
Counties  had  been  laid  over,  asked  in  August,  1685, 
that  it  be  taken  up,  as  being  a  question  of  property, 
and  not  of  power,  as  raised  by  quo  warranto.  In 
October,  the  Committee  decided  that  the  land  granted 
to  Lord  Baltimore  in  1632  was  intended  to  be  only 
such  as  at  the  time  was  uncultivated  and  not  inhabited 
except  by  savages,  and  that  the  western  shore  of 
Delaware  Bay  and  River  at  that  time  had  been  planted 
and  was  inhabited.  A  very  fair,  a  substantially  just, 
recommendation  was  made  on  Oct.  31  to  the  King  in 
Council,  viz :  that  the  land  between  the  eastern  sea  and 
river  and  the  Chesapeake  be  divided  into  two  equal 
parts  by  a  line  drawn  from  the  latitude  of  Cape  Hen- 
lopen  to  the  40th  degree,  the  eastern  part  to  be  the 
King's,  the  western  part  to  be  Lord  Baltimore's.  On 
Nov.  17,  1685,  an  order  was  made  in  Council  approving 
and  directing  this.  Nothing  was  said  about  Penn's 
right  under  James  in  the  recommendation  or  order.  It 
was  afterwards  claimed  that  this  order  enured  to  the 
use  of  William  Penn  as  James's  tenant  in  fee  under 
the  old  deeds. 

The  right  of  James,  however,  at  this  time  did  not 
hang  upon  his  acquirement  of  the  land  when  Duke  of 
York,  and  the  legal  conclusion  must  be  that  his  true 
title  to  the  west  side  of  Delaware  Bay  and  River,  justi- 
fying the  decision,  came  to  him  when  he  succeeded 
Charles  as  King.  Was  the  sovereign  to  be  bound  as 
trustee  by  his  grants  made  when  a  private  citizen 
without  right  to  the  property?  or  were  the  covenants 
then  made  for  warranty  and  further  conveyance  so 
obligatory  and  beyond  his  royal  discretion  that  a  court 
of  equity  would  afterwards  presume  a  royal  patent  from 
him  to  carry  them  out?  Was  succeeding  sovereigns' 
right,  which  was  supposed  to  be  for  the  good  of  the 
community,  so  to  be  divested0?  James  as  King  did  in- 
tend to  give  William  Penn  a  patent  for  the  Lower 


AsCEKTAINMENT   OF   THE    SoUTHEKN    BoiJNDABY.      45 

Counties.  This,  moreover,  as  we  learn  from  a  petition 
of  Hannah  Penn  of  1720,  was  to  extinguish  the  rent 
reserved  in  the  deeds  of  1682.  Logan  had  heard  that 
the  patent  had  gone  through  the  various  offices,  and  was 
ready  for  the  great  seal,  when  the  Lord  Chancellor 
made  objection  to  some  of  the  powers  conferred.  The 
Revolution  prevented  the  final  issuing. 

From  the  livery  of  seisin  at  William  Penn's  first 
visit  to  America,  when  he  entered  the  fort  at  New 
Castle,  and  turf  and  twig  and  a  porringer  of  river 
water  and  soil  were  delivered  to  him  there,  and  Mark- 
ham,  as  his  attorney,  received  similar  tokens  on  Appo- 
quinimy  Creek,  the  inhabitants  of  the  Lower  Counties 
accepted  their  new  master.  The}7  chose  seven  free- 
holders from  each  county  to  meet  in  Assembly  with 
representatives  from  the  counties  of  Pennsylvania  on 
December  6,  1682.  At  that  meeting,  upon  petition  of 
seven  persons  from  New  Deal  (Sussex),  six  from  St. 
Jones's  (Kent),  and  five  from  New  Castle,  an  act  of 
Union  was  passed  on  Dec.  7,  by  which  those  counties 
were  annexed  to  the  Province  of  Pennsylvania,  and  the 
people  subjected  to  the  same  laws,  and  invested  with 
the  same  privileges,  as  the  people  of  the  Province. 
This  proceeding,  which  could  not  have  force  in  political 
matters  against  the  Sovereign,  had  no  effect  upon  the 
disputed  ownership  of  the  soil:  yet  the  region  con- 
tinued to  be  under  the  same  government  as  Pennsyl- 
vania until  the  American  Revolution,  although  with  a 
separate  legislature  after  1702,  and  with  the  stipulation 
of  the  Penns  in  writing,  whenever  the  appointment  of 
the  acting  Governor  was  approved,  that  such  approba- 
tion by  the  King  or  Queen  should  not  prejudice  the 
King  or  Queen's  right  to  those  countries.  Within  the 
region,  the  Penns  sold  and  confirmed  lands,  and  inter- 
mittently collected  rents  until  Delaware,  on  July  4, 
1776,  was  declared  a  free  and  independent  State.  Fol- 
lowing that,  the  People  decided  adversely  to  any  title 


46  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

having  been  rightfully  in  the  Penns ;  for  while,  in  di- 
vesting the  Proprietaries  of  unsold  land  and  of  quit 
rents,  the  Assembly  of  Pennsylvania  made  exceptions, 
and  granted  a  partial  compensation,  the  Assembly  of 
Delaware  neither  allowed  nor  paid  anything. 

The  decision,  or  order,  of  1685,  whatever  its  effect 
as  between  King  James  and  Penn,  established  both  the 
eastern  and  northern  boundaries  of  Maryland,  and 
should  have  been  accepted  by  the  Proprietaries  thereof 
as  shutting  them  out  from  the  land  east  of  the  line 
prescribed,  and  by  the  Proprietaries  of  Pennsylvania 
as  making  them  in  their  turn  recede  from  the  land  west 
of  the  line  as  far  as  the  fortieth  parallel  astronomically 
fixed.  The  King  in  Council  was,  as  Lord  Hardwicke 
afterwards  said,  the  proper  tribunal  for  the  determina- 
tion of  boundaries,  even  where,  as  in  this  case,  the  King 
was  deciding  upon  his  own  rights,  for  it  was  presumed 
that  he  would  be  just.  It  is  likely  that  if  Lord  Balti- 
more had  accordingly  yielded  the  great  bone  of  con- 
tention, the  Lower  Counties  and  the  river  frontage 
above  them,  a  line  run  by  him  or  his  orders  according 
to  the  mean  of  the  observations  would  have  been  ac- 
cepted by  William  Penn  as  the  location  of  the  parallel. 
The  Proprietaries  of  Maryland,  however,  tried  to  over- 
throw the  decision,  and  the  Proprietaries  of  Pennsyl- 
vania maintained  possession  of  what  they  had  far  south 
of  even  an  approximate  location  of  the  fortieth  par- 
allel. 

Throughout  the  long  struggle  between  the  opposing 
Proprietaries,  the  advantage  was  nearly  always  on  the 
side  of  the  Penns :  at  the  beginning,  in  William  Penn's 
standing  at  Court,  and  after  the  Revolution  of  1688,  in 
the  greater  toleration  of  Quakers  than  of  Papists,  and, 
except  for  a  very  short  period,  in  the  uninterrupted 
possession  by  the  Penns  of  the  government  of  Penn- 
sylvania and  Lower  Counties,  and,  except  at  rare  inter- 
vals, in  the  preference  of  the  inhabitants  concerned, 


Ascertainment  of  the  Southern  Boundary.    47 

and  almost  always  of  the  more  substantial  inhabitants, 
for  the  Penns,  rather  than  the  Calverts,  as  landlords. 

In  1689,  Charles,  3rd  Lord  Baltimore,  was  outlawed 
by  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  in  Ireland  on  the  charge 
of  high  treason,  and  this  was  followed  in  1691  by  the 
appointment  of  a  Royal  Governor  over  Maryland. 
Although  King  William  III  was  convinced  that  Bal- 
timore was  innocent,  and  issued  a  warrant  in  1693 
for  reversing  the  outlawry,  Baltimore  did  not  seek  to 
avail  himself  of  this  by  going  to  Ireland,  although  sub- 
sequently petitioning  Parliament  to  relieve  him;  and 
the  powers  of  government  of  the  Proprietary  of  Mary- 
land remained  suspended  during  the  rest  of  this 
Baron's  life. 

Under  Royal  rule,  Maryland  officials  endeavored  to 
have  the  boundary  line  run  in  accordance  with  the  order 
of  1685,  and  Penn,  on  Sep.  1,  1697,  ordered  Markham 
to  co-operate  in  doing  this :  but  nothing  resulted. 

Scarcely  any  white  people  settled  beyond  the  Brandy- 
wine  except  within  twelve  miles  of  New  Castle  until 
1701.  A  few  months  after  Penn  ended  his  second  visit 
to  the  Province,  Cornelius  Empson  and  others  proposed 
to  the  Commissioners  of  Property  to  settle  18000  acres 
on  the  Octorara  about  twenty-four  miles  from  New 
Castle.  The  Commissioners  hesitated,  feeling  doubt- 
ful as  to  the  Penn  right  so  far  south  to  the  west  of  the 
line  ordered  in  1685,  but  the  applicants  were  importu- 
nate and  willing  to  take  the  risk.  The  Commissioners 
added  3000  acres  for  the  Proprietary,  and  issued  a 
warrant  for  the  whole,  dated  1,  7,  1702,  the  land  to  be 
adjoining  on  the  south  the  barrens  between  the  Octo- 
rara and  the  main  branch  of  the  North  East  River, 
and  to  be  bounded  on  the  south  by  an  east  and  west 
line  parallel  as  near  as  might  be  "to  the  line  of  the 
Province. ' '  The  district  received  the  name  of  Notting- 
ham. It  was  laid  out  so  near  the  latitude  of  the  mouth 
of  the  Octorara  as  to  be  cut  by  the  boundary  as  finally 


48  Chbonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

established.  About  this  time,  Talbot's  manor,  which, 
laid  out  under  Maryland  authority,  covered  the  district, 
was  offered  for  sale  to  Anthony  Sharp,  one  of  the 
Quaker  proprietors  of  New  Jersey,  and  Sharp  informed 
Penn  of  this  opportunity :  but  Penn  was  without  ready 
money,  and  the  purchase  would  not  change  the  para- 
mount lordship,  but,  if  the  land  was  within  Maryland, 
would  make  Penn  only  a  tenant  of  Lord  Baltimore  for 
it.  In  1705,  Empson  was  so  little  inclined  to  hold 
Nottingham  adversely  to  that  Lord  that  he  was  con- 
templating protecting  himself  by  acquiring  a  title  to 
it  from  him.  Nothing  of  the  kind  appears  to  have  been 
done,  and,  in  1718,  Keith,  Lieutenant-Governor  of 
Pennsylvania,  gave  officials  powers  within  that  settle- 
ment, he  having,  however,  refused  to  exercise  authority 
over  the  settlers  of  New  Munster,  east  of  Nottingham, 
who  were  holding  by  Maryland  title.  To  a  request  from 
Hart,  Governor  of  Maryland,  for  the  recalling  of  the 
commissions  over  Nottingham,  Keith  answered  that, 
pending  a  settlement  of  the  boundary  dispute,  each 
side  should  be  allowed  jurisdiction  over  those  occupy- 
ing land  under  grants  from  that  side. 

For  a  long  time  after  the  settling  of  Nottingham,  the 
trend  of  immigration  through  Pennsylvania  was  much 
further  north,  and  the  agents  of  the  Penns  took  care 
to  keep  their  people  away  from  the  Octorara  line:  so 
Pennsylvanians  generally  came  to  believe  that  such 
line  was  the  undoubted  boundary  in  the  region  border- 
ing on  the  Susquehanna. 

In  1708,  the  third  Lord  Baltimore,  still  hoping  to 
obtain  the  Lower  Counties,  attempted  to  have  the  order 
of  November,  1685,  set  aside;  but,  upon  report  by  the 
Commissioners  for  Trade,  the  Queen  dismissed  the  peti- 
tion. A  second  petition  by  him  for  the  same  purpose 
resulted  in  an  order  of  June  23,  1709,  that  the  petition 
be  dismissed,  and  that  the  order  of  1685  be  confirmed, 
and  put  in  execution  without  delay. 


Ascertainment  of  the  Southern  Boundary.    49 

When  Penn  was  old  and  broken  by  his  troubles,  and 
not  long  before  the  loss  of  his  mind,  he  was  ready  to 
seize  upon  those  stricter  or  more  literal  interpretations 
of  the  two  charters  which  they  were  not  understood  to 
mean  in  1681.  Hannah  Penn,  the  wife  married  at  the 
end  of  1695,  had  no  knowledge  to  gainsay  these  inter- 
pretations. It  is  only  fair  to  John,  Thomas,  and 
Richard  Penn,  who  drove  the  ultimate  bargain  with  the 
fifth  Lord  Baltimore,  to  say  in  this  connection  that  they 
were  not  grown  up  in  time  to  talk  business  with  their 
father  or  even  their  elder  brother,  and  came  to  their 
estate  with  their  information  derived  from  their 
mother,  and  in  dependence  upon  her  legal  advisers. 

Although  the  Maryland  practice  was  to  issue  war- 
rants at  large,  that  is  not  specifying  the  locality,  but 
allowing  the  surveyor  to  survey  any  land  in  that  prov- 
ince at  the  risk  of  his  action  being  void  by  reason  of 
the  land  belonging  to  another  purchaser;  a  practice 
likely  to  result  in  overstepping  the  province's  bound- 
aries :  yet  the  preference  for  land  convenient  to  the 
settlements  kept  the  Maryland  surveyors  well  south  of 
Octorara  Creek  for  a  long  time.  About  the  beginning 
of  1713,  surveying  upon  lands  previously  surveyed  by 
Pennsylvanians  began.  Perm's  Commissioners  of  Prop- 
erty, Carpenter,  Hill,  Norris,  and  Logan  wrote  to 
Charles  Carroll,  Lord  Baltimore's  agent,  asserting 
their  own  observance  of  what  they  understood  to  have 
always  been  deemed  by  the  Marylanders  their  northern 
boundary,  meaning  the  Octorara  line,  and  suggesting 
that  all  further  proceedings  be  deferred  until  the  bound- 
ary could  be  fixed  by  authority  of  the  Crown  following 
the  surrender  of  the  government  of  the  two  provinces. 
There  had  been  a  report  that  Lord  Baltimore,  as  well 
as  Penn,  was  about  to  make  a  surrender.  The  officers 
or  citizens  of  Chester  County  seized  the  Sheriff  of  Cecil 
when  executing  his  office  upon  land  claimed  by  Penn- 
sylvania,  perhaps    summoning   or   arresting   settlers. 

4 


50  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Carroll  sent  a  polite  reply,  promising  no  further  vio- 
lence until  the  boundary  was  settled,  which  he  sug- 
gested could  be  by  ascertaining  the  "fortieth  degree" 
by  instruments,  without  appealing  to  the  Crown,  the 
degree  having  been  already  found  to  be  much  further 
north  than  any  of  the  surveys. 

It  may  have  been  only  for  fixing  the  boundary  west 
of  the  eastern  line  decreed  in  1685  that  the  third  Lord 
Baltimore  had  been  having  these  later  observations 
taken.  In  March,  1713-4,  another  observation  was 
taken,  and  the  latitude  of  a  place  on  the  Upper  Branch 
of  the  Elk  River  was  calculated  to  be  39°  29'  17".  He 
died  about  a  year  after  this. 

The  fourth  Lord  Baltimore  had,  long  before,  become 
a  Protestant,  but,  dying  in  April,  1715,  a  few  weeks 
after  succeeding  to  the  Irish  barony  and  the  American 
proprietorship,  did  not  recover  the  government  of 
Maryland.  He  had  married  a  daughter  of  Sir  Edward 
Henry  Lee,  first  Earl  of  Lichfield,  but  had  been  di- 
vorced from  her  after  the  birth  of  a  number  of  children, 
among  whom  was  Charles,  who  became  fifth  Lord 
Baltimore.  Lichfield's  wife,  Charles's  grandmother, 
was  an  illegitimate  child  of  King  Charles  II,  but  such 
bastard  relationship  to  the  Stuarts  exerted  no  influence 
when  Charles  Calvert  came  to  his  inheritance.  He 
succeeded  when  about  sixteen  years  old.  Having, 
however,  been  brought  up  a  Protestant,  he  was  not 
under  the  cloud  which  had  hung  over  his  ancestors.  In 
about  a  month,  the  government  of  Maryland  was  re- 
stored to  him. 

He  did  not  grow  up  a  man  of  great  ability  or  strong 
character,  although  recognized  as  having  some  at- 
tainments in  the  arts  and  sciences.  Clayton  Colman 
Hall,  in  The  Lords  Baltimore  and  the  Maryland  Palati- 
nate, quotes  various  opinions  concerning  him,  includ- 
ing Lord  Hervey's:    "thinks  he  understands  every- 


Ascertainment  of  the  Southern  Boundary.    51 

thing,  but  understands  nothing  ...  is  a  little 
mad." 

In  1717,  Maryland  surveyors  went  as  far  north  as 
near  the  head  of  the  Pequea  Creek:  in  opposition,  the 
Pennsylvania  Commissioners  of  Property,  on  11  mo.  2, 
not  only  awarded  to  a  partisan  some  of  the  ground 
surveyed,  but  also  offered  a  reward  of  10  I.  to  any  per- 
son arresting  such  a  surveyor,  and  delivering  him  to 
the  Sheriff  or  proper  officer.  If  at  this  time  the  Mary- 
land surveyors  retreated  before  this  peril  of  being 
kidnapped,  the  officials  of  Cecil  County  afterwards  did 
not  hesitate  to  make  at  least  a  show  of  force  to  vindi- 
cate their  jurisdiction,  and  the  threatening  possibilities 
west  of  the  Susquehanna,  remote  from  centres  of 
authority,  and  where  Indians  might  resent  encroach- 
ments, caused  in  1721  or  1722,  an  agreement  between 
the  acting  Governors  of  the  two  colonies  that  no  sur- 
veys for  any  private  person  should  be  made  in  that 
region. 

Keith's  steps  in  opposition  to  the  putting  of  settle- 
ments on  the  western  banks  of  the  Susquehanna,  will 
be  narrated  in  the  chapter  on  Confusion  at  the  Death 
of  William  Penn.  This  Lieutenant-Governor  of  Penn- 
sylvania accepted  the  views  of  the  Penn  agents  and 
friends  in  the  Council,  that,  pending  a  final  decision 
by  competent  authority  of  the  boundary  question,  the 
Octorara  line  must  be  recognized. 

By  agreement  dated  Feb.  17,  1723-4,  between  Lord 
Baltimore  of  the  one  part,  and  William  Penn's  widow 
and  executrix  and  two  of  the  mortgagees  of  Pennsyl- 
vania &ct.  of  the  other  part,  it  was  provided  that  for 
eighteen  months  no  persons  on  either  side  should  be 
disturbed  in  their  possessions,  nor  any  lands  surveyed, 
taken  up,  or  granted  in  either  province  near  the  bound- 
aries claimed  by  either  side.  The  hope  was  expressed 
in  the  agreement  that  within  the  period  the  boundaries 
would  be  determined  and  settled.    This  hope,  however, 


52  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

was  not  realized,  and  Marylanders  and  Pennsylvanians 
entered  upon  the  disputed  region:  in  fact  the  former, 
in  ignorance  of  where  the  40th  parallel  was,  often  went 
beyond  what  Baltimore  claimed. 

In  1731,  Thomas  Cresap  and  others  with  Maryland 
warrants  took  possession  of  Conejohela,  settling  at  a 
spot  in  fact  north  of  the  40th  parallel,  on  the  western 
bank  of  the  Susquehanna,  driving  away  some  Indians, 
and  burning  their  cabins.  Depredations  upon  the 
whites  of  Pennsylvania  allegiance,  followed  by  resist- 
ance to  arrest,  brought  about  a  border  war  which  in- 
volved some  loss  of  life,  although  during  the  years  in 
which  said  struggle  was  somewhat  spasmodically  kept 
up,  proceedings  to  settle  the  question,  or  to  gain  some 
legal  advantage,  were  being  taken  by  more  conspicuous 
persons. 

On  July  1,  1731,  Lord  Baltimore  petitioned  the  King 
to  order  the  Proprietaries  of  Pennsylvania  to  join  with 
said  Lord  in  ascertaining  the  boundaries.  Before  this 
petition  was  disposed  of,  frequent  interviews  took  place 
between  the  principals  on  both  sides,  the  bill  and  an- 
swer subsequently  filed  in  Chancery  contradicting  each 
other  as  to  who  made  the  overtures.  We  cannot  see 
why  Baltimore  sought  or  suggested  the  compromise 
made,  or,  for  that  matter,  why  he  agreed  to  it,  even  sup- 
posing that  he  meant  the  interpretation  in  minor  de- 
tails for  which  he  afterwards  contended.  With  the 
western  half  of  the  Delaware  peninsula  already  his,  it 
was  not  a  case  of  "give  and  take"  to  accept  less  than 
he  claimed  to  the  north,  or  even  as  little,  in  exchange 
for  his  relinquishing  claim  to  the  old  City  of  Philadel- 
phia and  most  of  its  Northern  Liberties,  the  present 
Delaware  County,  and  nearly,  if  not  all,  the  present 
state  of  Delaware.  Even  if  that  relinquished  claim 
was  then  worthless,  so  that  said  land  is  not  to  be  taken 
into  account,  he  was  giving  away,  north  of  the  present 
boundary  of  Maryland,  over  2,000,000  acres  which  the 


Ascertainment  of  the  Southern  Boundary.    53 

charter  of  1632  plainly  gave  him,  and  the  order  of  1685 
as  clearly  adjudged  to  him;  acres,  moreover,  adjoining 
improved  property.  We  can  only  suppose  that  he  was 
not  sober,  or  had  otherwise  lost  his  head,  or  had  been 
unduly  frightened  by  the  matter  of  the  Octorara  line. 
With  unaccountable  weakness,  from  the  consequences 
of  which  the  English  Court  of  Chancery  did  not  let  him 
squirm  out,  he,  as  party  of  the  1st  part,  made  an  agree- 
ment dated  May  10,  1732,  with  John,  Thomas,  and 
Richard  Penn,  of  the  2nd  part,  whereby  it  was  cove- 
nanted that  the  circle  called  for  by  King  Charles  II 's 
charter  should  be  drawn  at  twelve  miles  distance  from 
New  Castle,  that  from  the  middle  point  of  an  east  and 
west  line  to  be  run  from  the  point  of  Cape  Henlopen, 
lying  south  of  Cape  Cornelius  on  the  ocean,  to  the 
western  side  of  the  Peninsula,  there  should  be  run  a 
straight  line  northwardly  as  a  boundary  until  it 
touched  the  western  part  of  the  periphery  of  the  circle 
around  New  Castle,  and  from  the  point  of  contact  a 
further  boundary-line  should  be  run  due  north  to  the 
latitude  of  fifteen  English  miles  due  south  of  the  south- 
ernmost point  of  the  City  of  Philadelphia,  that  a  line 
due  west  should  then  be  run  across  the  Susquehanna 
to  the  western  extent  of  Pennsylvania,  or  as  far  as 
requisite,  viz:  twenty-five  English  miles  west  of  the 
River,  so  that  it  could  be  continued  when  those  parts 
were  better  settled,  that  if  the  line  running  due  north 
from  the  point  of  contact  with  the  circle  should  cut  off 
part  of  the  circle,  such  part  should  still  be  in  New 
Castle  County,  that  seven  commissioners  on  each  side, 
three  being  a  quorum,  should  lay  out  and  mark  the  lines 
between  October  1,  1732,  and  December  25,  1733,  and 
that  the  party  whose  commissioners  did  not  attend  after 
any  adjournment  should  forfeit  £5000  to  the  party 
whose  commissioners  attended.  It  is  rather  amusing 
that  so  strongly  had  the  Penn  side  been  imbued  with 
faith  in  the  Octorara  line,  that  Ferdinand  John  Paris, 


54  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

the  Penn  lawyer,  in  writing  to  Pennsylvania  about  the 
agreement,  apologized  for  its  yielding  so  much! 

It  would  seem,  on  the  other  hand,  that,  when  the 
prominent  Marylanders  heard  of  the  agreement,  they 
began  trying  to  find  some  means  of  breaking  it  without 
their  Proprietary  becoming  liable  for  the  £5000  for- 
feiture, although  they  might  have  thought  even  that 
preferable  to  carrying  the  agreement  out.  The  joint 
commissioners  were  appointed  and  met,  but  soon  ad- 
journed on  a  quibble  raised  by  those  from  Maryland. 
At  a  subsequent  meeting,  the  latter  insisted  that  the 
circle  around  New  Castle  was  to  be  twelve  miles  in 
diameter,  instead  of  radius.  The  commissioners  ap- 
pointed by  the  Penns  having  no  authority  to  run  any 
circle  but  that  of  twelve  miles  radius,  there  was  a  final 
adjournment  on  Nov.  24,  1733,  obviating  any  forfeit, 
but  making  it  impossible  to  carry  out  the  agreement 
within  the  time  specified. 

On  Aug.  8,  1734,  Lord  Baltimore  petitioned  the  King 
to  grant  him  letters  patent  confirming  to  him  in  fee 
the  Peninsula  as  in  the  charter  to  Caecilius,  the  2nd 
Lord,  notwithstanding  the  words  "hactenus  inculta" 
&ct.  in  its  recital.  Richard  Penn,  the  only  Proprietary 
of  Pennsylvania  then  in  England,  opposed  this,  his 
lawyers  insisting  that  the  agreement  for  adjusting 
boundaries  was  in  force  notwithstanding  the  failure 
to  run  the  line  within  the  prescribed  time.  A  petition 
from  several  thousand  Quakers  of  the  Lower  Counties 
against  such  a  grant  was  laid  before  the  Commissioners 
for  Trade  &ct.,  and  the  latter  recommended  that  fur- 
ther consideration  be  postponed  until  the  end  of 
Michaelmas  Term  following,  to  give  the  Penns  an  op- 
portunity to  raise  before  a  court  of  equity  the  question 
of  the  validity  of  the  agreement.  Such  postponement 
was  made  by  the  King  in  Council  on  May  16,  1735. 

The  Penns  filed  the  necessary  bill  in  the  Chancery  of 
Great  Britain  on  June  21,  1735.    Anybody  reading  the 


Ascertainment  of  the  Southern  Boundary.    55 

bill,  and  not  aware  of  the  facts  about  the  old  patents 
as  before  mentioned,  will  get  the  idea  that  Baltimore, 
the  defendant,  was  a  terrible  robber,  a  liar,  if  not  a 
forger,  a  trickster  who,  after  browbeating  the  rightful 
owners  into  his  own  terms,  conspired  to  prevent  their 
being  carried  out,  and  a  sneak  who  took  advantage  of 
the  absence  of  the  older  brothers  to  apply  to  the  King. 
The  bill  prayed  for  equitable  relief,  the  lawyers  using 
every  pretence  of  title,  every  accusation  of  bad  deal- 
ing, requisite  or  cumulative,  to  make  out  that  the  agree- 
ment was  reasonable,  had  been  broken  by  the  act  of 
the  other  party,  and  should  be  specifically  performed. 
The  bill  seems  to  have  been  the  first  formal  assertion 
that  the  charter  to  the  2nd  Lord  gave  him  only  the 
few  miles  on  Delaware  Bay  between  the  cape  at  the 
entrance  and  the  completion  of  the  thirty-ninth  degree, 
viz :  the  thirty-ninth  parallel.  Lord  Baltimore 's  answer 
disputed  the  effect  upon  his  right  of  orders  in  Council, 
possession,  expenditure,  and  pecuniary  loss  set  forth 
in  the  complaint,  and  denied  some  of  the  facts,  and 
alleged  that  he  had  been  imposed  upon  as  to  the  loca- 
tion of  Cape  Henlopen  from  which  the  southern  bound- 
ary of  the  Lower  Counties  was  to  be  run,  and  set  up 
the  want  of  title  in  the  complainants  to  the  land  to  be 
allotted  to  him,  and  the  want  of  consideration  in  the 
agreement,  and  defended  his  commissioners  and  their 
interpretations,  and  prayed  for  the  cancellation  of  the 
agreement. 

Before  the  case  could  be  decided,  the  disorders  on 
the  frontiers  broke  out  afresh,  in  fact  the  officials  of 
the  bordering  counties  of  the  two  colonies  seem  to  have 
promoted  violence  in  hopes  of  gaining  for  their  respec- 
tive lords  some  small  advantage.  A  petition  was  sent 
from  Maryland  to  the  King  in  1736,  reciting  various 
offences  committed,  and  praying  some  relief  from  the 
state  of  affairs.  On  Aug.  8,  1737,  the  King  made  an 
order  in  Council  commanding  the  Governors  of  the  two 


56  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Provinces  to  preserve  the  peace,  and,  for  that  purpose, 
to  make  no  grants  of  any  part  of  the  land  in  contest, 
nor  any  part  of  the  Lower  Counties,  nor  permit  any 
person  to  settle  or  attempt  to  settle  thereon  until  the 
King's  pleasure  was  further  signified. 

On  petitions  from  both  sides  to  the  King,  received 
after  the  royal  order  of  Aug.  8,  1737,  the  Lords  for 
Trade  and  Plantations  brought  about  an  agreement 
between  the  opposing  Proprietaries  as  follows,  viz: 
that  settlements  within  the  Lower  Counties  be  per- 
mitted without  prejudice  to  either  right;  that  all  lands 
remain  in  the  possession  and  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  Proprietary  possessing  them,  until  boundaries  be 
settled;  that  all  other  land  in  contest  east  of  the  Sus- 
quehanna, and  not  in  the  Lower  Counties,  and  not  as  far 
as  fifteen  miles  and  a  quarter  south  of  the  latitude  of 
the  most  southern  point  of  the  City  of  Philadelphia, 
and  all  land  west  of  the  Susquehanna  not  as  far  as 
fourteen  and  three  quarter  miles  south  of  said  latitude, 
be  in  the  temporary  jurisdiction  of  Pennsylvania,  and 
all  land  south  of  those  distances  be  in  the  temporary 
jurisdiction  of  Maryland,  that  the  respective  Proprie- 
taries be  permitted  to  grant  vacant  lands  within  their 
temporary  jurisdiction  on  the  usual  terms,  subject  to  an 
accounting  if  such  locality  be  finally  adjudged  to  the 
other  Proprietary;  and  that  all  prisoners  by  reason  of 
the  boundary  dispute  be  discharged  on  their  own  recog- 
nizances to  appear  for  trial  when  ordered  by  his 
Majesty.  The  King  in  Council  on  May  25, 1738,  ordered 
this  agreement  to  be  carried  into  execution,  without 
prejudice  to  either  party. 

The  temporary  boundary  thus  ordered  between  the 
two  jurisdictions  was  agreed  to  be  run  by  commission- 
ers from  each  side,  who  began  work  on  Dec.  5  by 
agreeing  that  a  certain  post  on  Society  Hill  was  the 
southernmost  point  of  Philadelphia.  In  the  follow- 
ing Spring,   after  running  due  west  far  enough  to 


Ascertainment  of  the  Southern  Boundary.    57 

get  away  from  the  wide  parts  of  the  Brandywine  and 
Christiana  Creeks,  and  then  running  due  south  fifteen 
and  a  quarter  miles  along  the  surface  of  the  earth  with 
an  allowance  of  25  perches  for  altitude  of  the  hills,  all 
the  commissioners  ran  the  line  from  this  starting-point 
thus  found  to  the  Susquehanna,  and  fixed  the  starting- 
point  on  the  west  side.  After  this,  one  of  the  Mary- 
land commissioners  being  called  home  by  a  death  in  his 
family,  and  his  colleague  declining  to  go  on  without 
him,  the  Pennsylvania  commissioners  ran  the  line  to 
the  top  of  the  most  western  hill  of  the  Blue  Mountain 
range,  the  limit  of  land  purchased  by  the  Pennsylvania 
Proprietaries  from  the  Indians. 

The  proceedings  in  chancery,  including  the  taking 
of  much  testimony  in  America,  lasted  many  years.  The 
case  came  finally  to  Lord  Chancellor  Hardwicke  for 
decision  by  himself  alone.  This  was  pronounced  on 
May  15,  1750.  Feeling  the  greatness  of  the  interests 
involved,  he  remarked  that  the  matter  was  ''worthy 
the  judicature  of  a  Roman  Senate  rather  than  of  a 
single  judge, ' '  and  that  it  was  a  consolation  to  him  that 
there  was  a  judicature  equal  in  dignity  to  that  Senate— 
the  House  of  Lords — to  whom  an  appeal  could  be  made, 
if  he  erred.  He  did  not  decide  the  dispute  between  the 
parties  as  it  stood  before  the  making  of  the  agreement. 
Had  that  responsibility  been  upon  him,  it  is  possible 
that  he  would  have  come  to  conclusions  more  like  those 
of  an  impartial  historian  as  to  the  intentions  of  states- 
men dead  before  he  was  born,  and  as  to  facts  in  which 
the  actors  had  passed  away.  As  the  case  was  pre- 
sented, he,  however,  saw  reasonableness  in  the  Penns' 
interpretation  of  the  charters.  He  accepted  as  true  the 
allegation  of  a  charter  to  the  Duke  of  York  in  1683,  and 
therefore  thought  that  the  Duke,  afterwards  King,  was 
a  trustee  for  Penn;  but,  as  the  Lower  Counties  were 
not  to  be  conveyed  by  Penn's  descendants,  their  title 
to  convey  needed  not  to  be  considered.    The  decision 


58  Chkonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

was:  that  for  an  agreement  to  compromise,  it  was 
enough  that  there  was  a  doubt  as  to  the  true  rights, 
and  the  settlement  of  the  contention  was  a  sufficient 
consideration.  He  found  as  a  fact  that,  in  making  the 
agreement,  Lord  Baltimore  was  neither  surprised  nor 
imposed  upon  nor  ignorant.  There  was  no  mistake  of 
the  intention  of  the  parties  made  in  the  articles  of 
agreement.  So  the  Lord  Chancellor  decreed  specific 
performance  of  the  agreement  without  prejudice  to  any 
right  of  the  Crown. 

The  present  author  is  not  aware  that  there  has  been 
any  criticism  of  this  decision  by  any  luminary  of  equit- 
able jurisprudence  as  bright  as  the  one  who  delivered 
it.  What  is  called  equity  by  lawyers  had  long  before 
that  time  become  an  artificial  system  very  different 
from  the  justice  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  Chancellors. 
We  can  imagine  one  of  them  asked  to  enforce  such  a 
bargain  as  the  heir  of  the  grant  of  1632  had  made :  they 
sat  partly  for  the  very  purpose  of  restraining  any  man 
or  men  who  by  the  terms  of  a  bargain  would  get  an  un- 
conscionable advantage.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that 
their  opinion  would  have  been  against  the  complainants 
in  this  case,  and  with  the  words  "ils  serront  damnes  in 
hell." 

For  an  account  of  the  carrying  out  of  the  agreement 
so  declared  binding,  the  reader  is  referred  to  George 
Johnston's  History  of  Cecil  County,  Maryland.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  the  boundary  line  or  boundary  lines  were 
at  last  run  to  almost  the  west  end  of  Maryland  by 
Charles  Mason  and  Jeremiah  Dixon.  They  were  Eng- 
lish mathematicians  and  astronomers,  selected  by  the 
opposing  Proprietaries,  and  performed  the  work  in  a 
little  less  than  three  years,  ending  on  Sept.  25,  1766: 
and  the  delimination  was  confirmed  by  the  King  in  1769. 
In  the  middle  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  the  names  of 
Mason  and  Dixon  were  in  the  mouth  of  nearly  every 
American ;  for  their  line  was  marking  the  cleavage  be- 


Ascertainment  op  the  Southern  Boundary.    59 

tween  the  Free  and  the  Slave  States  of  the  Union.  In 
the  uncertainty  of  origin,  as  there  is  for  so  many  ex- 
pressions, it  is  possible  that  Dixon  has  a  memorial  in 
the  songster's  designation  of  the  land  of  the  late 
Southern  Confederacy  as  " Dixie." 


CHAPTER   III. 

The  Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the  Land. 

The  King's  charter  grants  the  soil — Europeans 
with  anterior  title — Indian  rights — Swedes  and 
Dutch  purchase — Bishop  Compton  advises  Penn  to 
do  so,  and  such  course  necessary — Eegulations  pro- 
tecting the  red  men — Quit  rents — Feudal  position 
of  Penn — Pennsylvania  "ground  rents" — The  vari- 
ous manors — Most  of  Penn's  first  sales  in  small 
quantities — The  tracts  of  10,000  acres  cut  up — 
Sales  by  Penn  after  his  first  visit — The  Propri- 
etor's "tenths" — Uniform  price  of  other  land — 
Method  of  selling  and  conveying — Conditions  and 
Concessions  to  the  first  purchasers — The  "Liber- 
ties" of  the  great  town — Plan  of  Philadelphia — 
Holme's  survey — A  colony  and  city  on  the  Susque- 
hanna projected — Warrants  and  patenting — Land 
Commissioners  before  Penn's  second  visit — Land 
legislation  and  disputes  during  the  second  visit — 
Subsequent  proceedings — The  Land  Office — The 
Divesting  Act. 

The  charter  of  King  Charles  II  granted  to  William 
Penn  and  his  heirs  and  assigns  the  soil,  lands,  isles, 
rivers,  waters,  &ct.  within  the  limits  or  boundaries,  with 
the  fish  and  fishing  and  mines  and  quarries,  and  made 
him  and  his  heirs  and  assigns  ' '  true  and  absolute  pro- 
prietaries,''  the  King  retaining  allegiance  and  sover- 
eignty and  a  fifth  of  the  gold  and  silver  ore  clear  of 
expense,  and  the  King  reserving  a  rent  consisting  of 
two  beaver  skins,  to  be  delivered  at  Windsor  Castle 
on  the  first  of  every  January.  The  country  and  islands 
were  erected  "into  a  province  and  seigniorie." 


Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the  Land.     61 

Interfering,  however,  with  the  Proprietary's  freedom 
to  place  tenants  throughout  the  region  were  the  rights 
of  two  kinds  of  human  occupants :  the  Europeans  who 
were  already  seated  on  particular  lots  of  ground,  and 
the  aborigines,  or  supposed  aborigines,  miscalled 
Indians, — a  name  to  which  we  must  adhere, — who  were 
making  use  of  extended  reaches. 

It  suited  the  purposes  of  England  to  claim  that  the 
soil  on  which  the  Swedes  and  Dutch  had  planted  their 
North  American  colonies  belonged  all  the  while  to  her 
Crown  by  right  of  Cabot's  discoveries,  if  not  of  acts 
concerning  the  region;  but,  as  to  all  the  inhabitants 
along  the  Delaware  in  1664  who  had  not  resisted  the 
so-called  recovery,  justice  and  the  King's  promise  and 
the  Commissioners'  stipulation  forbade,  while  the 
amount  of  vacant  land  rendered  unnecessary,  the  tak- 
ing away  of  what  a  man  or  his  father  had  acquired 
with  the  consent  of  his  government,  or  improved  by  the 
expenditure  of  his  money  and  labor.  The  undisposed 
of  residue  of  the  tracts  held  by  rulers  or  political  bodies 
was  not  under  such  immunity.  In  punishment  for  re- 
sisting the  alleged  rightful  owner,  the  English  confis- 
cated the  property  of  the  Dutch  Governor,  the  Schout, 
and  others  guilty  of  hostility,  but,  as  to  the  other  pos- 
sessors of  land,  required  merely  that  they  surrender  all 
old  patents,  and  be  supplied  with  new  ones,  because 
the  old  patents  were  upon  condition  of  the  holders 
being  subjects  of  the  United  Belgic  Provinces.  Threats 
were  made  that  a  failure  to  obtain  new  patents  would 
be  punished  with  forfeiture;  but  a  number  of  persons 
failed  to  comply,  some  hoping  to  avoid  paying  a  quit 
rent.  A  rent  appears  to  have  been  reserved  in  the  old 
grants.  This  was  demanded  by  the  Duke's  agents.  In 
early  patents,  Nicolls  reserved  the  quit  rent  to  the 
King's  use,  payable  yearly  when  demanded  by  the  per- 
sons whom  he  would  put  in  authority  on  Delaware 
River.    Afterwards,  the  rents  were  often  reserved  to 


62  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

the  Duke.  According  to  Logan  in  1709  (Penna.  Ar- 
chives, 2nd  Series,  Vol.  XIX,  p.  501),  the  government 
at  New  York  fixed  the  rate  at  a  bushel  of  wheat  for 
every  100  acres. 

Not  only  were  claims  by  any  one  without  an  English 
patent  liable  to  be  disregarded  some  day  by  an  English 
Proprietary,  but  if,  indeed,  the  Duke  of  York  had  no 
title  to  the  western  bank  of  the  Delaware,  his  grantees 
also,  whether  the  Englishmen  who  came  after  the  con- 
quest or  the  foreigners  who  had  been  made  subjects, 
were  occupants  without  title.  William  Penn  could  not 
take  advantage  of  this  within  the  circle  around  New 
Castle  and  the  region  south  of  it;  for  there  his  only 
right  was  through  the  Duke.  As  to  the  old  settlers  in 
Pennsylvania  proper,  unfair  as  the  eviction  of  them 
might  be,  and  bad  as  Penn's  position  to  attempt  it 
would  be,  he  having  accepted  from  the  Duke  a  release 
and  confirmation  of  King  Charles's  patent,  yet  there 
was  no  security  without  a  binding  declaration  from 
Penn.  If  a  fresh  contract  was  to  be  made  with  him,  it 
would  be  upon  the  terms  he  would  choose;  if  the  old 
contract  was  to  stand,  he  was  to  be  the  landlord,  and 
take  the  rents  formerly  agreed  upon.  There  were  not 
many  Englishmen  within  the  limits  of  Pennsylvania 
at  the  date  of  King  Charles 's  charter. 

To  the  Swedes  and  very  few  others  of  foreign  birth, 
as  naturally  more  puzzled  and  fearful  than  the  Eng- 
lish occupants,  Penn,  on  his  first  arrival,  made  reassur- 
ing speeches,  and,  moreover,  he  passed  laws  for  title 
by  seven  years'  quiet  possession,  and,  in  the  Frame  of 
Government  of  2mo.  2,  1683,  confirmed  to  all  inhabi- 
tants of  the  Province  or  Territories,  whether  purchasers 
or  others,  full  and  quiet  enjoyment  of  all  lands  to  which 
they  respectively  had  any  lawful  or  equitable  claim, 
saving  only  such  rents  and  services  for  the  same  as 
were  "or  customarily  ought  to  be  reserved  to  me  my 
heirs  or  assigns."    Very  early — Acrelius  says  that  it 


Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the  Land.     63 

was  on  June  14,  1683, — he  sent  for  all  the  patents  of 
the  old  inhabitants  for  inspection,  and  offered  new 
patents.  To  make  room  for  his  capital  city  and  its 
suburbs  called  "Liberties,"  he  cut  down  the  size,  or 
took  away  the  whole,  of  certain  plantations,  designat- 
ing other  land  in  compensation.  His  persuasiveness, 
mingled,  perhaps,  with  some  fear  of  him,  accomplished 
a  great  design  so  beneficial  to  the  public  that  it  would 
have  justified,  if  within  his  authority,  acts  of  eminent 
domain.  Probably  also  his  surveyors  corrected  lines. 
All  this  seems  the  foundation  of  the  complaint  that 
he  reduced  the  possessions  of  the  older  inhabitants. 
Rev.  Israel  Acrelius,  Provost  of  the  Swedish  Churches 
in  America,  says,  in  his  work  generally  quoted  as 
History  of  New  Sweden,  that  some  thousands  of  acres 
of  swampy  land  covered  with  water  at  high  tide,  had 
been  used  as  pasturage,  although  not  included  within 
the  old  metes  and  bounds,  and  such  were,  upon  resur- 
veys,  cut  off  from  the  adjoining  plantations,  and  that 
the  new  patents  charged  three  or  four  times  the  old 
quit  rent,  so  that  the  occupants  who  did  not  surrender 
their  deeds  kept  the  land  they  were  using,  and  did  not 
assume  increased  rent.  Some  of  those  who  did  surren- 
der their  deeds  did  not  take  out  new  patents,  which, 
besides  having  to  be  paid  for,  seemed  sufficiently  objec- 
tionable in  reserving  even  at  the  old  rate  a  rent  to  be 
paid  to  Penn  and  his  heirs  and  assigns.  An  idea  had 
spread  that  the  old  landholders,  being  tenants  of  the 
King,  or,  rather,  of  the  Duke,  whom  these  foreigners 
confused  with  the  King,  were  not  bound  to  pay  rent  to 
any  one  else,  and  were  free  so  long  as  the  King  did  not 
make  the  requisite  demand.  It  is  noticeable  that  the 
King's  patent  does  not  in  so  many  words  give  to  Penn 
the  rents  and  reversions  of  lands  already  granted 
within  the  region:  but  the  Duke  of  York's  release  espe- 
cially conveys  all  the  rents  &ct.  which  he  had. 

The  older  landholders  and  those  who  had  inherited 


64  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

or  bought  from  them  could  not  be  disregarded  by  the 
Assemblymen  chosen  by  the  whole  body  of  property- 
owning  freemen.  In  1700,  during  Penn's  second  visit, 
it  was  enacted  that  all  lands  seated  by  virtue  of  letters 
patent  or  warrants  under  the  Crown  of  England  before 
the  grant  to  William  Penn  except  where  obtained  by 
fraud  or  deceit  should  be  quietly  enjoyed  by  the  actual 
possessors  and  their  heirs  and  assigns. 

In  1709,  the  Swedish  view  was  set  forth  in  a  petition 
to  the  Assembly,  complaining  moreover  that  those  who 
had  handed  in  their  old  patents  never  got  them  back. 
The  Land  Commissioners  met  the  petitioners,  and 
agreed  to  examine  into  any  particular  case  of  injury 
by  taking  away  land,  and  insisted  on  the  obligation  to 
pay  quit  rent.  Logan  said  that  he,  Secretary  since 
Penn's  departure,  had  never  had  any  of  the  old  patents, 
nor  had  ever  asked  greater  quit  rent  than  a  bushel  of 
wheat  for  every  hundred  acres.  Penn,  receiving  notice 
of  the  complaints,  represented  the  case,  says  Acrelius, 
to  the  Swedish  Minister  Resident  in  London,  after 
transmission  by  whom  the  matter  was  taken  up  by  the 
Royal  Council  of  Sweden.  It  is  possible  that  the  mal- 
contents were  the  first  to  approach  the  Minister.  The 
Royal  Council  under  date  of  June  23,  1711,  warned  the 
members  of  the  Swedish  congregations  on  the  Dela- 
ware, if  they  wished  further  help  in  church  matters, 
to  conduct  themselves  in  obedience  to  the  laws  of  the 
country  where  they  were  living  and  also  to  Penn.  Pro- 
testing that  they  had  always  been  quiet  and  loyal 
subjects,  the  Swedes  in  1713  asked  a  certificate  to  that 
effect  from  the  Assembly  of  Pennsylvania  to  the  British 
and  Swedish  governments,  and  made  a  long  representa- 
tion of  grievances  to  the  Swedish  Minister.  To  a  peti- 
tion in  1721  by  Swedes  for  an  act  to  confirm  titles,  the 
Land  Commissioners  made  answer  that  the  titles  of 
the  petitioners  under  the  Duke  of  York  had  never  been 
called  in  question,  as  far  as  the  Commissioners  knew. 


Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the  Land.     65 

At  the  time  of  the  Charter  to  Perm,  the  Indians  had 
abandoned  very  few  contiguous  square  miles  within 
the  present  limits  of  the  state,  and,  besides  believing 
themselves  entitled  to  the  spaces  between  some  isolated 
plantations,  occupied  the  whole  country  from  the  Con- 
shohocken  range  of  hills  to  Lake  Erie,  receiving  white 
visitors  occasionally  in  the  southeast,  on  either  side  of 
that  range  of  hills,  and  French  missionaries,  French 
traders,  and  perhaps  French  soldiers  in  the  northwest. 
During  the  whole  period  of  this  history,  the  Penns  can 
not  be  said  to  have  obtained  possession  to  a  greater 
distance  in  any  direction  than  ninety  miles  from  Phila- 
delphia. 

The  general  question  of  Indian  title  and  Penn's 
attitude  in  relation  thereto  and  his  plan  for  the  red  man 
and  the  white  man  to  live  as  good  neighbours  may  be 
discussed  here,  leaving  to  the  next  chapter  the  account 
of  particular  tribes  and  the  dealings  with  them  before 
the  end  of  Penn's  second  visit  to  Pennsylvania,  and  to 
other  chapters  the  various  episodes  in  Indian  affairs 
connected  with  the  time  or  subject  touched  upon  in 
those  chapters. 

The  principle  being  once  established  that  discovery 
or  occupation  or  cession  by  the  discoverer  or  occupier 
gave  to  one  Christian  prince  or  nation  the  ownership 
as  far  as  all  Christian  princes  and  nations  were  con- 
cerned, it  follows  that  he  or  that  nation  alone  of  all  of 
them  could  enter  into  relations  with  the  barbarians 
inhabiting  the  region  covered  by  such  ownership.  If 
another  civilized  power  attempted  to  avail  itself  of  any 
consent  obtained  from  the  native  barbarians  to  a  foot- 
hold in  that  region,  it  was  an  invasion.  Moralists  early 
doubted  the  right  of  any  nation  whatever  to  intrude 
where  other  human  beings  were  dwelling,  or  even  were 
accustomed  to  hunt  and  fish,  unless  those  human  beings 
gave  consent,  either  freely  or  after  a  lawful  war.  Some 
persons  had  gone  so  far  as  to  assert  title  by  purchase 


66  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

from  the  natives,  independent  of  or  in  opposition  to 
title  by  discovery  or  occupation ;  but  the  general  recog- 
nition by  commercial  and  colonizing  nations  of  title  by 
discovery  or  occupation  practically  curtailed  the  rights 
of  the  aborigines  of  the  New  World  by  restricting  the 
market  for  those  rights,  like  some  modern  agreements 
restraining  trade  by  apportioning  territory.  If  wild 
men  had  any  property  in  the  soil,  they  could  not  seek 
in  the  family  of  Christian  nations  ' '  the  highest  and  best 
bidder."  There  was  only  one  nation  which  could  buy, 
and,  under  the  best  approved  system,  there  was  only 
one  individual,  viz :  the  sovereign,  or  his  representative, 
either  official  or  by  license.  Therefore,  in  discussing  in 
the  first  chapter  the  claim  of  one  Englishman  against 
another,  and  tracing  the  title  of  one  European  power 
as  against  another,  little  has  been  said  about  any  grant 
by  the  aborigines  of  North  America.  Yet  it  is  clear 
that,  except  by  absolute  subjugation  of  these,  no  land 
within  their  reach  could  be  actually  and  permanently 
acquired  without  license  or  transfer  from  them.  In 
Good  Speed  to  Virginia,  printed  in  1609,  quoted  in 
Alexander  Brown's  Genesis  of  the  United  States,  there 
was  mentioned  as  probably  correct  an  opinion  that  the 
savages  had  no  particular  property  in  any  part  of  the 
country,  but  only  a  general  residence  therein,  as  wild 
beasts  in  a  forest;  but,  nevertheless,  there  was  a  dis- 
claimer of  any  intention  to  take  the  natives'  rightful 
inheritance  by  force,  for,  it  was  stated,  they  were  will- 
ing to  entertain  the  settlers,  and  had  offered  to  yield 
on  reasonable  conditions  more  land  than  could  in  a 
long  time  be  planted.  The  customs  of  the  savages  lent 
some  support  to  the  theory  of  their  right  being  merely 
that  of  residence,  and  of  taking  sustenance.  Among 
such  nomads,  no  individual  could  exclude  another  from 
a  particular  piece  of  ground,  unless  covered  by  his  hut 
or  his  hill  of  corn,  and  proprietorship  even  by  the  tribe 
meant  nothing  much  beyond  the  villages  but  the  right 


Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the  Land.     67 

to  hunt  or  fish  within  certain  limits.  Moreover,  govern- 
ment was  loose,  the  "kings"  or  sachems  presiding  over 
a  democracy  in  which  affairs  were  settled  by  ' '  the  sense 
of  the  meeting."  The  freedom,  however,  of  these 
democracies  to  withhold  their  communal  possessions 
from  Europeans  was  quite  early  pretty  generally  ac- 
cepted as  a  fact,  and  even  recognized  more  than  is  sup- 
posed as  a  right. 

The  Swedes  and  the  Dutch,  too  few  to  be  conquerors, 
and  looking  for  the  furs  to  those  experienced  in  hunt- 
ing, endeavored  to  be  friends  with  the  natives,  and, 
condoning  occasional  murders  by  them,  succeeded.  Be- 
fore attempting  to  take  possession  of  land,  these 
Swedes  and  Dutch  purchased  it  from  those  savages  who 
claimed  the  right  to  sell,  and,  in  the  course  of  time, 
from  successive  and  conflicting  claimants.  There  was 
only  one  safe  course  to  pursue:  to  buy  from  every 
Indian  in  sight,  and  if  any  who  had  sold  had  forgotten 
or  doubted  the  scope  of  the  transaction,  then  to  buy 
over  again.  Whatever  land  acquired  for  the  Swedish 
or  Dutch  colonies  was  not  recognized  as  the  property 
of  individuals,  passed  to  the  King  of  England  by  the 
treaty  of  Westminster.  The  officers  under  Charles  II 
or  the  Duke  of  York  in  dealing  with  the  red  men  strove 
to  avoid  all  cause  of  complaint  through  unfair  trading 
or  unjust  bodily  hurt.  The  laws  published  on  March  1, 
1664-5,  at  Hemsted  by  Col.  Richard  Nicolls  provided 
that  no  purchase  of  land  from  Indians  after  that  date 
should  be  a  good  title  without  leave  from  the  Governor 
having  been  first  obtained  for  such  purchase ;  and  that, 
afterwards,  before  a  grant  by  the  government  could  be 
issued,  the  sachem  and  right  owner  must  acknowledge 
receipt  of  payment;  and  that  all  injuries  done  to 
Indians  should,  upon  their  complaint  and  proof  in 
court,  be  speedily  redressed  gratis.  Some  purchases 
of  land  west  of  the  Delaware  were  afterwards  made  by 
private  individuals  or  public  officers,  so  that  by  the 


68  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

time  Perm  received  the  charter  from  the  King,  a  con- 
siderable part  of  the  southeastern  corner  of  the  present 
state  was  covered  by  deeds  from  some  Indian,  much  of 
the  acreage  being  the  private  property  of  settlers,  and 
much  being  undisposed  of  by  the  King  or  Duke,  and 
so  transferred  to  Penn.  The  quantity  of  vacant  land, 
however,  was  as  nothing  compared  to  the  needs  of  any 
large  immigration. 

We  do  not  know  how  early  and  how  clearly  William 
Penn  adopted  the  view,  scarcely  yet  universally  ac- 
cepted, that  a  civilized  man  is  morally  bound  to  bargain 
and  pay  for  land  over  which  nomads  have  been  merely 
roaming.  In  a  letter  from  Philadelphia,  dated  Aug. 
14,  1683,  to  the  Lords  of  the  Committee  for  Trade  and 
Plantations,  Penn  says:  "I  have  exactly  followed  the 
Bishop  of  London's  council  (sic)  by  buying  and  not 
taking  the  Natives'  land,  with  whom  I  have  settled  a 
very  kind  correspondence."  The  Bishop  of  London 
from  1679  to  1713,  except  during  a  short  suspension  in 
1686,  was  Dr.  Henry  Compton,  who  will  be  mentioned 
in  another  chapter.  It  would  seem  that  this  counsel,  or 
advice,  was  given  on  June  14,  1680,  when  Penn,  being 
called  in,  appeared  before  the  Committee,  and  the 
Bishop,  a  member  of  the  Committee,  was  present,  that 
meeting  being  the  only  one  attended  by  him  when 
Penn's  charter  was  considered.  Although  the  minutes 
do  not  mention  it,  we  must  conclude  that  the  Bishop, 
always  very  outspoken,  then  expressed  the  hope  that 
no  land  would  be  occupied  without  the  consent  and 
compensation  of  the  natives,  and  that  Penn  gave  as- 
surance that  he  would  be  extremely  careful  in  this  re- 
spect.   This  may  not  have  been  a  new  thought  to  Penn. 

While  we  would  not  detract  from  the  glory  due  to 
Penn  and  his  earliest  representatives  for  carrying  out 
this  plan  faithfully  in  letter  and  spirit,  and  the  glory 
due  to  the  genuine  or  earnest  Quakers  for  their  whole 
treatment  of  the  red  man,  we  are  quite  sure,  that,  even 


Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the  Land.     69 

without  any  humanitarian  or  moral  ideas,  Penn  would 
have  found  no  other  course  open  to  him  than  purchas- 
ing the  Indian  claim.  The  practice  being  so  well 
established  on  both  sides  of  the  Delaware,  the  Indians 
would  have  driven  out  intruders.  No  leader  without 
an  army  such  as  it  was  impracticable  to  keep,  could 
have  dared  at  the  time  to  rouse  in  the  savages  a  sense 
of  being  wronged. 

In  Penn's  early  prospectus  called  "Some  Account  of 
the  Province  of  Pennsylvania/'  he  offered  shares 
amounting  to  5000  acres  "free  of  Indian  claims."  In 
his  early  deeds,  he  covenanted  to  clear,  acquit,  and  dis- 
charge the  conveyed  lands  from  all  manner  of  titles 
and  claims  of  any  Indians,  or  natives  of  the  province. 
This  extinguishment  of  supposed  paramount  title, 
where  not  already  accomplished  before  his  time,  was 
duly  prosecuted.  The  district  in  which  any  of  those 
early  purchases  were  located  became  clear  of  Indian 
claims;  and  it  continued  to  be  a  rule  with  him  and  his 
family  and  the  land  agents  of  any  of  them  not  to  author- 
ize a  survey  of  any  lot  outside  of  what  had  been  bought 
from  the  Indians. 

Before  any  purchase  of  land  from  them  was  made 
by  Penn  or  under  his  authority,  he  turned  his  mind  to 
the  two  races  dwelling  together  or  in  proximity  with 
each  other  in  harmony.  The  principle  that  only  he 
could  acquire  the  land  which  on  March  4,  1680-1,  be- 
longed to  the  red  men,  eliminated  the  most  important 
subject  from  the  dealings  of  private  individuals,  and 
this  was  enforced  by  an  act  of  1683  punishing  with  fine 
and  loss  of  the  land  involved  any  purchasing  of  land 
from  the  natives  without  leave  from  the  Proprietary 
and  Governor  or  his  Deputy.  Where  there  unavoid- 
ably would  be  contact,  Penn  undertook  to  secure  fair 
and  right  dealing.  In  the  Conditions  and  Concessions 
agreed  upon  in  England  on  July  11,  1681,  between  him 
and  the  adventurers,  the  plan  of  selling  goods  in  public 


70  Chkonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

market  under  public  stamp  was  made  to  embrace  all 
buying  from  and  selling  to  an  Indian,  and  affronts  or 
wrongs  to  an  Indian  were  to  be  punished  as  if  done  to 
a  fellow  planter,  any  abuse  by  an  Indian  was  not  to 
be  revenged  by  the  planter  abused,  but  left  for  satis- 
faction to  a  magistrate  and  the  King  of  said  Indian, 
differences  were  to  be  decided  by  a  jury  half  of  one 
race,  half  of  the  other,  the  Indians  were  to  have  the 
same  liberty  as  any  of  the  planters  as  to  the  improve- 
ment of  their  ground  and  the  providing  of  sustenance 
for  their  families. 

By  Penn's  instructions  of  Sep.  30,  1681,  to  his  Com- 
missioners, Crispin,  Bezar,  and  Allen,  these  articles 
of  the  Conditions  were  to  be  read  to  the  Indians  in 
their  own  tongue;  then  presents  sent  over  for  their 
Kings  were  to  be  given,  and  a  friendship  and  league 
according  to  the  Conditions  was  to  be  made,  and  this 
the  said  Crispin  and  others  were  faithfully  to  keep. 
The  Assembly  of  1683  enacted  part  of  the  Conditions 
in  this  shape :  That  on  any  damage  done  to  the  persons 
or  estates  of  the  inhabitants  by  any  Indian,  notice 
should  be  given  to  the  King  of  the  tribe  to  bring  the 
Indian  to  trial  before  six  freemen  of  the  County  and 
six  of  the  near-by  Indians ;  if  such  a  trial  were  refused, 
the  County  Court  should  impose  fine  or  other  punish- 
ment: if  any  person  in  the  Province  or  Territories 
injured  an  Indian,  he  should  be  tried  by  six  freemen 
and  six  of  the  same  tribe  of  Indians,  the  Indian  King 
to  be  notified  to  be  present. 

Indians  were  allowed  by  an  Act  of  Assembly  a  bounty 
for  killing  wolves.  From  1690  until  1724,  this  was  the 
same  as  paid  to  white  men.  Such  had  been  the  rule  in 
the  days  of  Nicolls. 

Sale  of  strong  drink  to  an  Indian  except  by  the 
Governor's  license,  and  even  the  unauthorized  giving 
of  strong  drink  to  an  Indian,  had  been  prohibited  in 
the  laws  published  by  Nicolls.    This  not  being  in  1681 


Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the  Land.     71 

still  in  force  in  the  Duke  of  York's  possessions,  and 
Penn's  officers  having  forbidden  the  sale  in  his  prov- 
ince, several  Indians  on  Oct.  8,  1681,  petitioned  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor Markham  to  take  off  the  prohibition 
until  the  sale  should  be  stopped  at  New  Castle,  because 
the  Indians  were  going  down  there  to  buy  rum,  and 
getting  more  "debauched"  than  before.  Altogether 
the  Indians  were  rather  hypocritical  temperance  advo- 
cates, and  rarely  aided  any  approach  towards  teetotal- 
ism.  Sale  or  exchange  was  absolutely  prohibited  in 
the  Great  Law  passed  at  Chester  after  Penn's  arrival. 
Subsequently  the  Governor  and  Council  were  author- 
ized to  suspend  this  law  upon  making  agreement  with 
the  Indians  that  they  submit  to  the  same  punishment 
for  drunkenness  as  the  other  inhabitants,  viz:  fine  or 
imprisonment  on  bread  and  water  at  hard  labor.  The 
law  itself  remained  in  force  until  Fletcher's  time. 

The  Indians  having  been  aggrieved  in  trade  by 
strangers  in  Pennsylvania  &ct.,  a  law  was  proposed  by 
the  Assembly  in  1693,  and  enacted  by  Fletcher,  then 
Royal  Governor  in  Penn's  place,  and  was  subsequently 
under  Penn  re-enacted,  forbidding  from  trading  with 
Indians  all  non-residents  either  on  shore  or  aboard  any 
vessel,  except  such  as  had  come  with  their  families  with 
intent  to  settle,  and  forbidding  the  inhabitants  of  the 
Province  and  Territories  to  trade  with  the  Indians  pri- 
vately in  the  woods,  or  at  the  wigwams  or  Indian  towns, 
or  anywhere  but  at  the  trader's  own  dwelling-house. 

On  3mo.  17,  1701,  Penn  and  his  Councillors  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  Indian  trade  should  be  put  into 
the  hands  of  a  company,  which  should  take  measures  to 
set  before  the  savages  good  examples  of  probity  and 
candor,  both  in  commerce  and  behavior,  and  that  care 
should  be  taken  to  instruct  them  in  the  "fundamentals 
of  Christianity. "  In  further  considering  the  matter  on 
the  31st,  it  was  thought  that  there  ought  to  be  a  joint 
stock  in  which  all  persons,  especially  the  old  traders, 


72  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

should  be  free  to  share,  observing  rules  to  be  laid  down 
by  the  government,  and  that  no  rum  be  sold  to  any  but 
the  chiefs,  and  in  the  quantities  which  the  Governor 
and  Council  should  see  fit.  The  Assembly  failed  to 
agree  with  Penn  upon  a  bill  to  regulate  the  Indian  trade 
further  than  to  prohibit  the  sale  or  gift  of  rum,  brandy, 
or  other  spirits  mixed  or  unmixed,  and  to  forfeit  any 
pawn  taken  from  the  Indians  for  any  goods,  the  pledg- 
ing of  guns,  kettles,  &ct.  having  prevented  some  of  the 
red  men  from  gaining  their  livelihood  by  hunting. 

It  will  be  shown  in  the  next  chapter  that  by  the  time 
William  Penn  ended  his  first  visit  to  America  he  had 
secured  from  the  Delaware  Indians,  or  Lenni  Lenape, 
or  had  had  them  confirm  to  him  the  eastern  end  of  the 
present  Bucks  County  from  the  Jericho  Hills  to  the 
Neshaminy,  and  also  the  land  at  the  headwaters  of  the 
Neshaminy  and  Pennypack  Creeks  and  across  to 
Chester  Creek  beyond  the  ridge  called  the  Consho- 
hocken  hills.  In  1685,  his  agents  secured  the  frontage 
on  Delaware  River  and  Bay  from  Chester  Creek  to 
Duck  Creek,  the  frontage  between  Chester  Creek  and 
the  Neshaminy  apparently  having  been  recognized  as 
ceded  to  the  whites,  although  later  some  further  con- 
firmation was  made.  Some  deeds  professed  to  grant 
an  extensive  region  even  south  of  Duck  Creek  and  near 
or  on  the  Chesapeake  and  Susquehanna.  During  his 
second  visit,  he  bought  on  both  sides  of  the  last  named 
river  from  the  ancient  owners. 

Penn  stated  late  in  life  that  he  had  bought  the  land 
of  the  natives  dear.  Even  as  to  those  who  left  to  him 
the  quantity  and  character  of  goods  making  up  the  con- 
sideration, we  may  judge  that  he  did  not  abuse  the 
confidence  of  the  ''untutored,"  for  there  are  lists  of 
the  articles  given  to  two  of  the  unbusiness-like  ones. 
Misleading  is  any  attempt  to  contrast  the  present 
values  of  a  suburban  plateau  and  a  gun;  for  at  that 
time,  the  Indians  had  plenty  of  plateaux  and  few  guns. 


Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the  Land.     73 

Nor  were  those  who  sold  at  once  shut  out  of  the  region 
sold:  it  seems  that  when  the  land  was  actually  taken 
by  settlers,  these  former  owners  were  allowed  to  have 
their  residence — the  village  and  corn-patches — on  part 
of  what  had  been  made  a  Proprietary  manor. 

By  the  course  of  the  early  officials,  Dutch,  Swedish, 
and  English,  and  of  the  Quaker  pioneers  in  dealing 
with  the  savages,  not  only  was  peace  secured  for  the 
settlers,  but  also,  at  a  price  which  it  paid  the  European 
to  give,  and  the  Indian  to  take,  land  was  allotted  to 
civilized  man,  who,  except  in  the  surreptitious  promo- 
tion of  drunkenness,  was  useful  to  the  uncivilized. 

The  land  within  the  bounds  of  the  King's  grant  not 
held  by  white  men,  and  not  still  claimed  by  Indians, 
Penn  undertook  to  sell  or  lease,  or  to  cutivate  by  his 
own  laborers. 

In  his  first  prospectus  aforesaid,  Some  Account  Set., 
he  named  as  the  consideration  for  a  sale  a  principal 
sum  and,  in  addition  thereto,  an  annual  quit  rent  start- 
ing after  1684.  This  disproves  as  far  as  concerns  most 
of  the  quit  rents  the  statement,  made  by  the  Assembly 
of  1755,  that  the  quit  rents  were  sprung  upon  the  first 
purchasers,  and  were  acquiesced  in  only  upon  Penn's 
statement  that  they  would  take  the  place  of  taxes  for 
a  salary  to  him  as  Governor.  It  is  true,  as  will  be 
shown,  that  there  arose  a  question  about  quit  rents, 
but  only  those  upon  lots  in  the  City. 

An  old  act  of  Parliament,  beginning  with  the  words 
"Quia  emptor  es  terrarum,"  had  directed  that  when 
owners  of  land  in  fee  simple  conveyed  a  piece  in  fee 
simple,  the  purchaser  should  hold  feudally  of  the  lord 
of  whom  the  seller  had  held,  but  King  Charles  II,  in 
the  charter  to  Penn,  authorized  him  and  his  heirs  and 
assigns,  notwithstanding  this,  to  sell  in  fee  simple,  and 
retain  feudal  lordship  of  the  piece  sold.  They  were 
especially  authorized  to  erect  parcels  of  the  territory 
into  manors,  and  to  hold  courts  baron  or  views  of  frank- 


74  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

pledge,  and  to  grant  estates  to  be  held  of  such  manors. 
More  than  this,  the  Proprietaries  could  interpose  sub- 
ordinate barons  between  themselves  and  the  actual 
owners  of  the  plantations;  for  the  Proprietaries'  li- 
cense could  authorize  the  purchaser  of  land  in  fee  from 
them  similarly  to  erect  it  into  a  manor,  and  to  hold  such 
courts  within  it,  and  to  grant  in  fee  simple  to  be  held 
of  such  manor;  but  on  all  further  or  other  alienations, 
the  lands  were  to  be  held  of  the  lord  of  whom  the 
alienor  had  held  them.  In  spite  of  the  last  mentioned 
restriction  upon  subinfeudation,  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Pennsylvania,  after  the  American  Eevolution,  decided 
that  the  statute  Quia  emptores  was  never  in  force  in 
Pennsylvania,  and  that  our  ordinary  "ground  rents," 
as  we  call  them,  are  services  incident  to  feudal  tenure. 
William  Penn  granted  the  power  to  hold  manorial 
courts  to  the  Free  Society  of  Traders,  whose  20,000 
acres  he  erected  into  the  manor  of  Frank,  and  to  Dr. 
Nicholas  More,  whose  10,000  acres  were  to  be  called 
the  manor  of  Moreland.  The  license  to  More  was  dated 
Aug.  21,  1682.  There  is  a  tradition  that  More  built  a 
jail,  no  doubt  for  joint  use  with  the  Society  of  Traders, 
he  being  President  of  the  Society.  Besides  these  and 
the  tracts  reserved  for  the  Proprietary  himself,  over 
which,  of  course,  he  could  hold  court,  there  were  several 
blocks  of  10,000  acres,  and  even  some  smaller  ones, 
subsequently  laid  out  as  manors  for  certain  of  his  rela- 
tions. Against  them  and  his  wife's  brethren,  the  Pen- 
ingtons,  he  did  not  enforce  a  certain  article  of  the 
Conditions,  hereinafter  mentioned,  dated  July  11,  1681, 
viz:  that  no  purchaser  of  over  one  thousand  acres 
should  have  more  than  one  thousand  in  one  tract,  un- 
less he  planted  a  family  on  every  thousand  within  three 
years.  Nor  did  Penn  or  these  relations  or  connections 
suffer  the  loss  of  location  by  violation  of  another 
article,  viz:  that  every  one  should  plant,  or  man,  his 
surveyed  land  within  said  period,  or  be  obliged  to  move 


Acquisition  and  Distribution  op  the  Land.     75 

off  on  being  reimbursed  the  cost  of  the  survey.  The 
Assembly  of  1755  thought  Penn  himself  within  the  rule : 
and  he  and  the  others  probably  put  settlers  upon  these 
tracts  ultimately.  Every  tract  of  10,000  acres  belong- 
ing to  one  owner  came  to  be  spoken  of  as  a  manor ;  and 
it  is  likely  that  Penn  contemplated  erecting  as  such, 
when  peopled,  even  the  tracts  of  that  size  of  persons 
outside  of  his  family :  witness  his  direction  in  1701  for 
a  license  of  that  kind  for  the  Growdons '  10,000  acres  or 
even  for  Joseph  Growdon's  5000.  In  a  deed  of  1685 
to  Eneas  Mackpherson  alias  Chatone  of  Inveressie  in 
Scotland,  esquire,  for  5000  acres,  the  Proprietary 
erected  them  into  a  manor  to  be  called  the  manor  of 
Inveressie,  with  power  to  hold  manorial  courts;  but 
claim  under  this  deed,  being  made  for  the  first  time  to 
the  later  Penns,  was  rejected. 

William  Penn,  no  doubt,  could  have  gotten  a  quick 
return  by  "unloading"  large  shares  of  his  province 
upon  wealthy  acquaintances,  such,  for  instance,  as  those 
who  were  Proprietors  of  East  Jersey,  under  whom 
great  tracts  might  long  lie  waste,  or  upon  those  who 
would  give  considerable  money  to  be  local  barons,  who 
would  make  the  colony  less  attractive  to  a  poor  man. 
Penn's  great  purpose,  however,  in  obtaining  a  large 
territory  and  freedom  to  govern  it,  was  to  plant  a 
colony,  not  to  engage  in  real  estate  speculation.  He 
surely  hoped  for  some  profit  in  the  end ;  but  the  vision 
of  a  commonwealth  based  upon  his  ideas  dominated 
his  proceedings.  Not  merely  was  it  to  be  a  refuge  for 
those  oppressed  on  account  of  religion,  although  as  such 
it  would  attract  many,  and  particularly  those  with 
whom  he  had  most  influence,  but  it  was  to  flourish  with 
an  industrious  population.  Not  to  interfere  with  the 
opportunities  of  such,  he,  in  August  or  September,  1681, 
refused  £6000 — more  than  half  the  principal  of  the 
Crown's  debt  to  his  father — for  30,000  acres  and  a 
monopoly  of  the  Indian  trade  from  the  Delaware  to 


76  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

the  Susquehanna,  he  to  have,  moreover,  two  and  a  half 
per  cent  of  the  profits  of  the  trade.  The  Free  Society 
of  Traders  had  no  such  monopoly.  Penn's  first  thought 
was  to  sell  one  hundred  " shares,"  as  he  called  them, 
of  his  land,  each  containing  5000  acres,  and  to  let  as 
much  as  he  could  to  renters  in  lots  not  exceeding  200 
acres,  adding  50  acres  for  transporting  a  servant,  and 
granting  50  acres  to  the  servant  at  the  expiration  of 
the  term  of  service.  Very  soon,  however,  the  size  of 
the  lots  to  be  sold  was  varied,  and,  in  the  sales  of  over 
550,000  acres,  made  before  3mo.  (May)  22, 1682,  a  tract 
was  in  some  instances  as  small  as  125  acres,  and,  in 
the  majority  of  cases,  less  than  1000  acres.  Besides 
Nicholas  More,  the  greatest  purchaser  before  May  22, 
1682,  was  William  Bacon  of  the  Middle  Temple/  He 
did  not  remove  to  Pennsylvania,  but  soon  sold  his 
10,000  acres  in  pieces.  Some  blocks  of  10,000  acres 
were  purchased  respectively  by  two  or  more  persons, 
so  that  the  process  of  division  began  at  once;  while, 
with  the  large  holdings,  the  descent  to  a  number  of 
owners,  and  the  tempting  prices  early  obtainable 
through  the  development  of  the  country,  brought  about 
a  break  up  or  curtailment.  Dr.  More  died  in  1687 ;  his 
widow,  Mary,  who  married  John  Holmes,  died  in  1694. 
The  death  of  two  of  the  Doctor's  children,  Samuel  and 
Rebecca,  without  issue  tended  to  the  concentration  of 
the  property,  but,  under  an  Act  of  Assembly  of  1694 
authorizing  sale  for  benefit  of  the  family,  the  ''Green 
Spring"  plantation,  on  which  stood  the  dwelling-house 
(near  Somerton,  Philadelphia),  was  sold  in  the  follow- 
ing year,  and  the  heirs  disposed  of  nearly  all  the  other 
land  before  1720. 

The  estates  of  the  Society  of  Traders  were  sold  by 
trustees  appointed  by  an  Act  of  Assembly  of  March  2, 
1722-3.  The  tract  of  7700  acres  in  Chester  County,  com- 
prising the  present  township  of  Newlin,  was  bought 
by  Nathaniel  Newlin,  who,  although  an  agriculturist, 


Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the  Land.     77 

had  apparently  no  intention  of  keeping  so  much  after 
opportunities  to  sell  at  sufficient  profit.  He  reduced 
the  tract  somewhat,  and,  dying  in  1729,  left  the  balance 
to  be  divided  among  a  number  of  children.  The  re- 
membrance of  a  baronial  court  seems  involved  in  the 
notion  of  residents  of  the  locality  some  generations 
later  that  the  Newlins  would  ' '  some  day  come  back  and 
take  away  our  liberties." 

After  Perm's  return  to  England  from  his  first  visit 
to  America,  he  made  some  large  sales.  Through  some 
of  these,  Joseph  Pike,  a  prominent  Quaker  of  Cork, 
Ireland,  who  never  resided  in  the  Province,  became 
owner  of  more  than  25,000  acres,  most  of  which  he  and 
his  heirs  kept  throughout  the  period  of  this  history. 
In  1699,  four  Londoners,  probably  all  Quakers,  viz: 
Tobias  Collett,  citizen  and  haberdasher,  Michael  Rus- 
sell, citizen,  mercer,  and  weaver,  Daniel  Quare,  watch- 
maker, and  Henry  Gouldney,  linen  draper,  who  with 
their  associates  were  commonly  known  afterwards  as 
the  London  Company,  bought  from  Penn  nine  lots  in 
the  City  of  Philadelphia  and  certain  tracts  and  also 
60,000  acres  to  be  laid  out  as  they  might  desire,  5000 
acres  however  to  be  in  each  of  the  three  manors  of 
Highlands,  Gilberts,  and  Rockland,  and  a  single  tract 
to  be  in  the  vacant  land  of  each  township,  together  with 
the  proportion  of  liberty  lots,  if  any  vacant,  to  which 
they  would  have  been  entitled  had  they  been  purchasers 
under  the  first  Concessions.  Most  of  this  great  acreage 
was  soon  surveyed.  None  of  the  owners  came  to  Penn- 
sylvania, although  the  sales  did  not  dispose  of  every- 
thing until  very  late  in  the  Colonial  period. 

By  the  Conditions  and  Concessions  agreed  upon 
between  Penn  and  his  first  purchasers,  and  dated  July 
11,  1681,  he  was  to  retain  for  his  own  use  10,000  acres 
out  of  every  100,000.  The  great  feature  of  these  tracts, 
or,  as  they  were  called,  "tenths"  or  "manors,"  was 
that  they  were  withdrawn  from  sale  at  the  current 


78  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

price;  and  afforded  the  Proprietary  the  opportunity 
to  reap,  like  the  neighbouring  purchasers,  a  profit  from 
the  appreciation  of  real  estate  in  the  particular  dis- 
trict. William  Penn  at  first  did  not  take  his  full  num- 
ber of  "tenths";  but,  particularly  as  new  regions  were 
opened  to  settlers,  Proprietary  manors  continued  to 
be  laid  off  until  about  the  beginning  of  the  American 
Eevolution. 

Upon  the  assumption  that  one  acre  of  wild  land  was 
as  valuable  as  another,  Penn  made  all  the  sales  in  the 
earlier  years  at  the  rate  of  £100  principal  for  5000 
acres  clear  of  Indian  claim,  subject  to  the  quit  rent  of 
Is.  for  every  100  acres.  Such  ground  as  differed  much 
from  the  rest  could,  if  poorer,  by  William  Penn's  fair- 
ness, or,  if  better,  by  his  successors'  shrewdness,  or 
that  of  his  or  their  agents,  be  excepted  by  survey  as 
Proprietary  manors.  Outside  of  the  manors,  the  price 
for  frontier  land  asked  by  the  Proprietaries  or  their 
agents  seems  to  have  been  always  uniform,  although 
raised  from  time  to  time. 

Penn's  first  method  of  disposing  of  land  was  to  con- 
vey, on  receipt  of  the  purchase  money,  a  certain  quan- 
tity of  unlocated  acres  by  a  lease  for  a  year,  and  a 
release  in  fee  dated  the  next  day  after  the  lease,  and 
to  have  those  acres  laid  out  and  surveyed  under  the 
direction  of  his  Surveyor-General,  and  then  to  grant 
by  letters  patent  the  located  land  according  to  metes 
and  bounds. 

The  releases,  probably  executed  at  the  same  time  as 
the  lease,  expressed  the  tenure,  from  William  Penn  his 
heirs  and  assigns  as  of  the  seigniory  of  Windsor,  and 
reserved  a  quit  rent  to  them,  and  contained  a  covenant 
that  they,  at  times  appointed  in  and  by  certain  con- 
stitutions or  concessions,  would  clear  and  discharge  the 
land  from  all  Indian  title  or  claim,  and  that  Penn  or  his 
heirs  or  assigns  would  execute  all  other  acts  and  con- 
veyances provided  for  in  such  concessions.    The  pur- 


Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the  Land.     79 

chasers  covenanted  to  have  the  release  enrolled  within 
six  months  after  the  establishment  of  a  registry  in  the 
Province. 

As  a  rule,  in  the  releases  dated  prior  to  Penn's  first 
visit  to  America,  and  in  some  dated  while  he  remained 
there,  it  was  stipulated  that  the  land  should  be  laid  out 
according  to  the  Conditions  and  Concesssions  under 
date  of  July  11,  1681,  agreed  upon  between  Penn  and 
"the  adventurers  and  purchasers."  The  latter,  includ- 
ing those  who  by  Penn's  releases  were  made  parties 
to  said  agreement,  are  known  as  ' '  the  first  purchasers. ' ' 
The  Conditions  and  Concessions  required  the  establish- 
ment of  public  highways  and  streets  before  the  allot- 
ment of  particular  lands  to  the  respective  purchasers, 
and  provided  that  in  the  allotment  two  per  cent  of  each 
purchase,  if  the  ground  permitted,  should  be  within  the 
great  town  or  city  contemplated  as  a  capital,  and 
ninety-eight  per  cent  in  the  rural  district.  When  such 
a  city  was  decided  to  be  impracticable,  a  district  was 
set  apart  as  the  city's  "liberties"  to  contain  the  two 
per  cent,  and  the  city  proper  took  the  small  dimensions 
which  it  kept  until  1854,  viz:  from  the  north  side  of 
Vine  to  the  south  side  of  South  street,  and  from  the 
Delaware  to  the  Schuylkill.  Penn  gave  to  the  holders 
of  liberty  land  city  lots  proportionate  in  value  and  in 
addition  thereto;  but  he  did  not  divide  the  whole  city 
of  even  nine  tenths  of  it  among  these  purchasers.  The 
lots  conveyed  to  them,  like  those  sold  later  were  sub- 
jected to  a  quit  rent  of  appropriate  amount,  which 
thus  increased  what  the  first  purchasers  had  agreed  to 
pay  for  land  partly  in  the  great  town  and  partly  in 
the  country.  By  some  general  assent  like  that  obtained 
in  ' '  the  sense  of  the  meeting, ' '  this  was  arranged  after 
Penn  had  made  the  city  lots  larger  than  he  laid  them 
out  at  first. 

The  name  Philadelphia,  which  Penn  gave  to  the  city, 
had  been  rather  a  usual  one  for  certain  religious  soci- 


80  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

eties  or  an  ideal  community  from  its  signification, 
"brotherly  love":  and  the  fashion,  rather  than  Penn's 
being  struck  by  the  name  in  reading  the  Bible,  probably 
induced  his  choice.  Penn's  city  was  laid  out  before 
Aug.  16,  1683,  the  plan  being  described  in  the  Short 
Advertisement  or  Account  printed  with  Penn's  letter 
of  that  date.  Along  the  top  of  the  bank  on  each  river 
was  the  Front  Street,  called  either  Delaware  Front  or 
Schuylkill  Front  and  from  river  to  river  was  a  street 
one  hundred  feet  wide  called  High,  while  at  right  angles 
with  it,  and  midway  between  the  two  rivers,  was  an- 
other street  one  hundred  feet  wide.  Streets  fifty  feet 
wide  were  projected  parallel  with  one  or  other  of  the 
aforesaid  wide  streets.  Upon  the  intersection  of  the 
wide  streets  was  placed  a  public  square,  described  as 
ten  acres,  for  public  buildings,  while  four  other  pieces 
of  ground  were  left  open  as  public  parks  like  the  Moor- 
fields  of  London.  The  great  difference  from  the  present 
arrangement  of  the  principal  streets  was  in  there  being 
twenty-three  streets  running  north  and  south  instead 
of  the  present  twenty-two  in  the  same  space,  and  in  the 
Broad  Street  of  those  running  north  and  south  being 
the  twelfth  from  either  river.  The  lots  on  each  of  said 
Front  Streets  ran  back  to  the  second  street  from  the 
river,  but  the  lots  on  High  Street  did  not  run  as  far  as 
the  next  street  north  or  south.  All  these  lots  or  an 
undivided  share  therein  were  given  to  the  purchasers 
of  1000  acres  or  more.  The  Society  of  Traders  took  a 
strip  from  Delaware  Front  to  Schuylkill  Front,  causing 
the  elevated  ground  over  which  it  extended  about 
Delaware  2nd  and  Pine  to  be  known  as  ' '  Society  Hill. ' ' 
Along  the  back  streets  were  the  lots  for  those  who  had 
purchased  less  than  1000  acres.  Hardly  had  the  scheme 
of  streets  and  parks  been  adopted,  and  Holme's  map 
of  the  province  showing  this  been  published,  before 
the  width  of  Delaware  12th  street  was  changed.  The 
patent  dated  Aug.  3,  1692,  to  the  Society  of  Traders, 


Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the  Land.     81 

reciting  a  resurvey,  gives  the  property  from  Delaware 
Front,  on  which  it  extended  from  Spruce  to  Pine, 
thence  along  Spruce  and  Pine  320  ft.,  and,  narrowing 
on  the  north  to  the  width  of  366  ft.,  and  of  that  width, 
to  Schuylkill  Front,  bounded  on  the  south  by  Pine,  and 
this  patent  described  the  block  between  the  2nd  and  3rd 
streets  from  each  river  as  495  ft.,  and  all  the  other 
blocks  as  396  ft.,  except  that  between  Delaware  13th  and 
Broad,  which  block  was  520  ft.,  the  west  side  of  Broad 
being  396  ft.  from  the  east  side  of  Schuylkill  8th. 
Probably  the  moving  of  the  northwestern  and  south- 
western parks  about  two  blocks  westward  was  contem- 
poraneous with  the  aforesaid  rearrangement  of  streets. 

The  bank  of  the  Delaware  from  high  water  mark  to 
Front  Street  was  intended  to  be  left  unoccupied  except 
by  wharves,  Penn  leasing  in  1684  for  fifty  years  a  lot 
to  Samuel  Carpenter  for  the  latter  purpose.  However, 
some  of  the  caves  had  been  extended  and  roofed,  and 
it  took  some  time  to  make  the  cave-dwellers  go  away; 
after  one  or  two  had  made  terms  to  retain  the  better 
specimens  of  such  structures,  "bank  lots,"  as  they  were 
called,  began  to  be  granted  in  fee,  the  buildings  thereon 
being  restricted  to  a  height  not  obstructing  the  view 
from  the  western  side  of  Front  Street.  The  quit  sent 
for  a  bank  lot  was  not,  like  the  other  quit  rents,  to  re- 
main fixed,  but  was  to  be  increased  at  the  end  of  every 
period  of  fifty-one  years  to  one  third  of  the  rental 
value  as  then  ascertained  by  an  appraisement. 

A  large  part  of  the  city  remained  unsold  until  the 
divesting  of  the  Penn  estates,  when  the  Commonwealth 
of  Pennsylvania  began  disposing  of  the  lots  not  taken 
up,  in  many  cases  whole  blocks.  The  quit  rents  on  city 
lots,  like  those  on  rural  property  not  within  the  Pro- 
prietary manors,  were  abolished  by  the  Divesting  Act, 
as  will  be  mentioned. 

In  the  rural  district  of  the  Province,  according  to 
the  aforesaid  Conditions  of  1681,  any  persons  whose 


82  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

combined  purchases  amounted  to  5000  or  10,000  acres 
could  have  their  plantations  placed  side  by  side  as  a 
township,  and  if  possible  on  harbors  or  navigable 
rivers,  and  the  list  dated  3,  22,  1682,  arranged  the 
purchasers  in  groups  of  10,000  acres;  but  the  map  of 
the  lots  as  placed,  probably  with  the  consent  of  the 
purchasers  who  had  arrived,  does  not  correspond  with 
this,  although  showing  a  division  into  townships. 

A  general  warrant  was  issued  by  Penn  under  the 
date,  3,  22,  1682,  to  Thomas  Holme,  the  Surveyor-Gen- 
eral, to  survey  the  lots  for  the  purchasers  in  the  list  of 
that  date.  He  accordingly  cut  up  the  available  land 
outside  of  the  city  and  Liberties,  so  as  to  place  the 
tracts  containing  ninety-eight  per  cent  of  every  pur- 
chase. The  location  was  adhered  to  when  these  first 
purchasers  or  their  representatives  came  to  seat  them- 
selves, except  as  they  exchanged  their  locations,  or 
incurred  forfeiture  under  the  Conditions,  or  the  bound- 
aries were  altered  after  ascertainment  that  they  gave 
too  many  acres.  Holme's  map  of  Pennsylvania,  after 
he  had  inserted  tracts  not  in  the  first  list  given  to  him, 
but  sold  since,  was  printed  in  1687. 

In  1690,  Penn  issued  a  circular  for  the  sale  of  the 
region  along  the  eastern  side  of  the  Susquehanna,  free 
of  Indian  title,  and  with  a  proportionate  lot  in  a  city 
to  be  built  on  that  river.  The  project,  although  once 
or  twice  revived,  never  was  carried  through. 

Except  for  the  lots  in  the  first  list  given  to  Holme, 
Markham,  who  was  authorized  to  set  out,  survey,  rent, 
or  sell  lands,  and  the  Commissioners  who  were  in- 
trusted with  laying  out  the  city,  and  afterwards  Penn 
himself  and  his  successors  and  his  or  their  authorized 
agents  issued  a  special  warrant  to  the  Surveyor-Gen- 
eral, or,  if  there  was  none,  to  a  county  surveyor,  to 
survey  in  a  particular  place  each  lot  agreed  for.  This 
warrant,  which  was  as  to  many  lots  the  second  docu- 
ment necessary  for  a  good  title,  was  in  many  cases  the 


Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the  Land.     83 

first,  the  later  Penns  and  their  agents  not  executing 
deeds  of  lease  and  release.  The  warrant  was  duly  re- 
turned with  a  description  as  ascertained  by  survey. 

The  patent,  or  deed  poll  of  confirmation  made  letters 
patent,  was  signed  in  the  absence  of  the  Proprietary 
by  Commissioners  duly  appointed  by  him,  or,  when 
there  were  none,  then  usually  by  the  Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor under  a  general  letter  of  attorney  authorizing 
him  to  make  grants  on  the  terms,  methods,  rents,  and 
reservations  used  in  the  Land  Office.  The  necessity  for 
delivery  of  possession,  or  "livery  of  seisin,"  had  been 
obviated.  The  patent  otherwise  followed  feudal  forms. 
The  land  was  to  be  held  of  the  Proprietary  and  his 
heirs  and  assigns  as  of  a  certain  manor;  what  was 
within  or  adjoining  Philadelphia  or  its  Liberties,  for 
instance,  being  granted  to  be  held  as  of  the  manor  of 
Springettsbury.  The  tenure  was  to  be  by  fealty.  The 
quit  rent  was  expressed. 

When  William  Penn  departed  from  Pennsylvania, 
at  the  end  of  his  first  visit,  he  commissioned  Thomas 
Lloyd,  Robert  Turner,  and  James  Claypoole  to  grant 
warrants,  and  issue  patents.  Lloyd  and  Turner  will  be 
often  mentioned  in  this  book.  James  Claypoole  had 
been  a  merchant  in  London.  He  was  brother  of  the 
John  Claypoole  who  married  Oliver  Cromwell's 
daughter.  On  llmo.  21, 1686,  Markham,  then  Secretary 
of  the  Province  and  Proprietary's  secretary,  was  com- 
missioned with  Thomas  Ellis  and  John  Goodson  to 
exercise  those  powers.  An  order,  dated  three  days 
later,  required  any  two  of  them  to  dispose  of  any  tracts 
in  Pennsylvania  already  taken  up,  but  lying  vacant  and 
unseated,  and  most  likely  to  give  cause  of  discourage- 
ment to  those  ready  to  seat  the  same.  Certain  excep- 
tions and  time  of  grace  were  allowed  in  executing  this. 

A  very  annoying  right  was  retained  by  the  Proprie- 
tary so  long  as  a  patent  had  not  been  issued,  viz :  that 
of  correcting  wrong  measurements;  and  this  was  de- 


84  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

puted  to  these  early  Commissioners.  They  could  re- 
survey  lands  back  of  five  miles  from  the  navigable 
rivers,  and  were  to  keep  for  the  Proprietary's  use  and 
disposal  all  overplus  found  by  resurvey,  where  there 
had  not  been  a  final  grant  or  a  patent. 

Under  date  of  2mo.  16,  1689,  Penn  appointed  Mark- 
ham,  Turner,  Goodson,  and  Samuel  Carpenter  as 
"Commissioners  of  Propriety  (sic),"  and  to  act  in 
the  nature  of  a  court  of  exchequer  for  collecting  rents, 
and  auditing  the  Eeceiver's  accounts.  James  Harrison, 
as  steward,  had  collected  the  rents,  but  Blackwell,  the 
Governor,  was  made  Receiver.  Besides  the  forfeiture 
for  not  putting  people  on  the  land,  and  that  for  wrong 
measurement,  there  was,  until  the  passage  in  1693  of 
an  act  of  confirmation,  a  forfeiture  for  not  recording 
deeds.  There  was  little  complaint  against  these  Com- 
missioners or  Penn,  who  superseded  them  by  his  second 
visit,  either  as  to  the  distribution  of  lots  or  the  for- 
feitures; but  the  alteration  of  metes  and  bounds  by 
resurvey,  even  when  fairly  conducted,  was  deemed  a 
hardship.  In  1700,  Penn  and  his  freemen  in  Assembly 
agreed  upon  a  law  not  only  for  quiet  enjoyment  of  lands 
seated  by  virtue  of  patents  and  warrants  under  the 
Crown  of  England  before  Penn's  charters,  but  also  that 
all  lands  duly  taken  up  by  warrants  pursuant  to  pur- 
chases from  the  Proprietary,  or  issued  under  any  com- 
mission or  power  granted  by  him,  except  when  obtained 
by  fraud  or  deceit,  or  when  interfering  with  others '  just 
claims,  were  to  be  enjoyed  by  the  possessor  and  his 
heirs  and  assigns  according  to  the  warrants,  and  that, 
even  where  no  patent  had  been  granted,  peaceable  pos- 
session for  seven  years  after  peaceable  entry  under  the 
warrant  was  to  give  a  title  to  such  lands  in  such  quan- 
tity as  they  had  been  taken  up  for.  It  was  also  enacted 
that  future  grants  from  the  Proprietary  were  to  be 
under  the  great  seal,  and  to  give  an  absolute  title  not 
to  be  shifted  by  resurvey:  former  grants  under  broad 


Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the  Land.     85 

or  lesser  seal  were  to  be  good  for  the  quantity  of  land 
named  therein,  but  the  land  could  be  resurveyed  within 
two  years  after  the  publication  of  the  law,  and  the 
excess  over  the  stipulated  number  of  acres,  after  allow- 
ing four  per  cent  for  difference  of  surveys,  and  six 
per  cent  for  roads,  should  belong  to  the  Proprietary, 
the  possessor  having  the  refusal  at  reasonable  rates, 
to  be  agreed  upon  by  two  arbitrators  chosen  by  each 
side,  any  three  fixing  the  price,  or  saying  where  the 
excess  should  be  taken  off,  and  any  deficiency  should 
be  made  up  by  the  Proprietary  according  as  he  re- 
ceived overplus  land. 

The  legislation,  again  passed  in  1701,  was  not  suffi- 
cient to  satisfy  the  people.  When  the  last  Assembly 
chosen  during  Penn's  second  visit  had  convened,  and 
he,  in  his  speech,  had  offered  to  join  in  some  suitable 
provision  for  the  safety  of  the  people  in  privileges  and 
property,  a  number  of  citizens  of  Philadelphia  pre- 
sented a  petition  calling  attention  to  grievances,  and  in 
a  few  days  the  House  appeared  before  him  with  a  re- 
quest that  twenty-one  items  be  embodied  in  a  charter. 
He  protested  that  some  of  these  concerned  matters  not 
cognizable  by  an  Assembly,  being  matters  between  him 
and  the  individuals  with  whom  he  had  dealt;  and, 
standing  on  his  rights,  he  explained  that  he  must  avoid 
making  a  precedent  for  control  of  his  property  by  the 
law-making  power,  lest  there  be  a  Governor  distinct 
from  and  independent  of  the  Proprietary,  as  was  threat- 
ened by  a  bill  in  Parliament. 

However,  he  substantially  satisfied  the  Assembly  on 
some  points ;  for  instance,  he  allowed  hunting  and  fish- 
ing on  one's  own  land,  and  on  that  of  the  Proprietary 
not  taken  up,  and  that  fees,  if  such  as  would  relieve  the 
Proprietary  of  the  support  of  the  Surveyor,  Secretary, 
and  other  officers,  be  fixed  by  law,  or  left  to  an  action 
of  quantum  meruit.  On  his  promise  to  allow  the  ten 
acres  in  one  hundred  only  for  the  purposes  mentioned 


86  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

in  the  law,  the  Assembly  pressed  for  a  clearing  up  of 
misunderstanding,  so  that  the  allowance  for  roads  and 
highways  be  made  whether  the  lands  had  been  already 
or  were  yet  to  be  taken  up.  In  a  Bill  of  Property 
subsequently  sent  up  by  the  Assembly,  there  was  a 
clause  making  him  supply  deficiencies  found  on  resur- 
vey.  He  objected  that  he  had  never  intended  to  be 
debtor  where  the  ground  was  not  to  be  had;  but,  as  it 
was  thought  unfair  that  those  who  had  ten  per  cent 
more  than  the  deeds  called  for  could  keep  it,  while  those 
who  had  only  two  per  cent  overplus  might  have  to  be 
content  with  that,  he  was  willing  to  make  up  six  per 
cent  overplus  to  all.  This  the  House  rejected;  and  the 
law  of  1700  and  1701  on  the  subject  was  not  amended. 
He  ultimately  included  in  the  charter  which  established 
a  new  Frame  of  Government  the  5th  item  requested, 
viz:  that  no  person  be  liable  to  answer  in  any  matter 
of  property  before  the  Governor  and  Council,  or  else- 
where than  in  the  ordinary  courts.  In  one  of  the 
messages  on  this  subject,  the  Proprietary  said  that  he 
alone  was  to  decide  disputes  about  unconfirmed  prop- 
erties. The  8th  item  of  the  request,  reciting  that  he 
had  given  the  purchasers  to  expect  their  lots  in  the  city 
of  Philadelphia  as  a  free  gift,  asked  that  they  be  cleared 
of  the  rents  and  reservations.  To  this  he  replied  that 
the  first  purchasers  present  at  the  allotment  seemed 
readily  to  agree  to  what  was  done,  and  had  received 
more  than  double  the  frontage  first  promised:  if  those 
who  had  signed  the  petition  to  the  Assembly  would 
return  the  difference  between  50  ft.  and  102  ft.,  he 
would  "be  easy  in  the  quit  rents."  The  9th  item  was 
that  the  city  back  of  the  built  up  portion  remain  open 
as  common  until  the  respective  owners  be  ready  to 
build,  and  the  islands  and  flats  near  the  city  be  left  for 
the  inhabitants  to  gather  winter  fodder.  He  said  that 
it  was  a  mistake  to  think  the  fourth  part  of  the  city 
reserved  for  such  as  were  not  first  purchasers  belonged 


Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the  Land.     87 

to  anybody  but  himself,  but  he  was  willing  temporarily 
to  lay  out  some  land  for  the  accommodation  of  the  resi- 
dents ;  yet  the  islands  and  flats  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  city.  Similarly  he  agreed  that  the  bay  marshes  be 
as  common  until  disposed  of;  this  being  in  answer  to 
the  16th  item,  that  such  marshes  be  commons,  which 
proposal  he  took  as  "a  high  imposition,"  and  which  the 
Assembly  did  not  press :  whereas  the  Assembly  adhered 
to  the  8th  and  9th  items.  The  13th  item  went  so  far 
as  to  ask  that  the  land  not  taken  up  in  the  Lower 
Counties  be  disposed  of  at  the  old  rent  of  a  bushel  of 
wheat  a  hundred.  He  justly  replied  that  it  was  un- 
reasonable to  limit  him  in  what  was  his  own,  or  deprive 
him  of  the  benefit  of  an  advance  in  value  which  time 
would  give  to  other  men's  property.  Yet  the  Assembly- 
men thereupon  voted  that  they  "humbly  move  the  Pro- 
prietor would  further  consider  it  as  proposed. ' '  To  the 
20th  item,  that  the  quit  rents  be  redeemable,  he  said: 
"If  it  should  be  my  lot  to  lose  a  public  support,  I  must 
depend  upon  my  rents  for  a  supply,  and  therefore  must 
not  easily  part  with  them ;  and  many  years  are  elapsed 
since  I  made  that  offer  that  was  not  accepted."  The 
Assemblymen  unanimously  adopted  a  retort  that  they 
humbly  moved  that  "he  would  further  consider  it  in 
regard  to  his  former  promises  and  their  dependence 
thereon."  On  all  these  points,  notwithstanding  some 
conferences,  he  did  not  yield:  the  power  being  in  his 
hands,  the  disposing  of  land  was  not  changed. 

On  leaving  the  Province,  at  the  end  of  that  visit,  Penn 
commissioned  Edward  Shippen,  Griffith  Owen,  Thomas 
Story,  and  James  Logan  or  any  three  of  them  to  grant 
lots,  and  make  titles  &ct. 

The  law  of  1701  was  repealed  by  the  Queen  in  Council 
on  February  7, 1705-6,  before  the  business  of  resurvey- 
ing  and  settling  for  errors  could  be  finished.  Another 
act  on  the  subject,  passed  in  1712,  was  repealed  at  the 
close  of  the  following  year.    Very  little  more  legislation 


88  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

followed,  and  the  disposal  of  all  unsold  land  was  prac- 
tically in  the  hands  of  the  Commissioners  appointed  by 
the  Penns  until  the  oversight  was  taken  by  one  of  the 
family  coming  to  Pennsylvania.  Except  when  those 
managing  the  Proprietaries'  property  were  acting 
under  letters  of  attorney  from  the  mortgagees  or  under 
the  powers  conferred  by  William  Penn's  will,  a  regular 
course  of  procedure  was  followed,  and  rules  precluding 
favoritism  were  observed.  In  later  times,  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor presided  over  the  Board  of  Property, 
exercising  any  discretion  usually  according  to  the  ad- 
vice of  the  Secretary.  Under  that  title,  the  chief  man- 
agers from  1701  until  the  American  Revolution  were 
successively  James  Logan,  Rev.  Richard  Peters, 
William  Peters,  and  James  Tilghman.  As  the  business 
increased,  the  various  executive  duties  were  divided 
among  a  Secretary,  Surveyor-General,  Receiver-Gen- 
eral, Auditor-General,  and  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal, 
and  the  deputies  or  clerks  of  one  or  more  of  them,  all 
being  known  as  the  Land  Office. 

The  holding  by  one  or  two  men  of  not  merely  the 
quit  rents  on  land  sold,  but  of  the  entire  unsold  land 
within  the  boundaries  of  Pennsylvania  was  perceived 
to  conflict  with  or  threaten  the  government  of  the 
people,  for  the  people,  and  by  the  people  inaugurated 
for  the  State  at  the  American  Revolution.  So,  on  Nov. 
27,  1779,  the  legislature  of  the  new  Commonwealth 
passed  what  is  known  as  the  Divesting  Act,  taking  away 
or  transferring  to  the  State  from  the  Proprietaries  all 
unsold  land  except  what  had  been  acquired  by  them 
otherwise  than  as  Proprietaries,  and  except  what  had 
been  surveyed  to  them  as  manors  or  parts  of  manors 
prior  to  July  4,  1776 ;  and  also  abolishing  all  quit  rents 
except  those  reserved  out  of  land  within  the  manors. 
The  Assembly  had  a  free  hand  to  confiscate  or  destroy. 
The  treaty  of  peace  with  Great  Britain  had  not  been 
made:  it  prohibited  for  the  future  confiscations  of  the 


Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the  Land.     89 

property  of  the  Tories.  The  Assembly  in  the  Act 
showed  after  all  a  kindly  spirit.  It  was  impossible  to 
compensate  the  Penns  with  any  equivalent:  but,  lest 
John  Penn,  son  of  Thomas,  and  John  Penn,  son  of 
Eichard,  reduced  to  the  position  of  well-to-do  gentlemen, 
were  not  sufficiently  provided  for,  there  was  voted  to 
the  heirs  and  representatives  of  Thomas  and  Eichard 
Penn,  deceased  Proprietaries,  the  sum  of  £130,000  stg., 
payable  after  the  end  of  the  war.  The  money  was  duly 
paid  and  accepted.  In  consideration  of  the  loss  not 
thereby  covered,  the  British  government  for  over  one 
hundred  years  paid  to  the  representative  of  the  Pro- 
prietaries an  annuity  of  £4000,  and  then  commuted  it 
for  a  principal  sum. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

The  Red  Neighbours. 

The  Lenni  Lenape,  or  Delawares,  and  early  pur- 
chases from  them — Penn's  Great  Treaty:  time, 
place,  and  some  of  the  participants — Subsequent 
deeds — Further  account  of  the  Delawares  until 
1701 — The  Iroquoian  Five  Nations — The  Minquas, 
or  Susquehannocks ,  or  Andaste — Dealings  to  ac- 
quire for  Penn  the  Susquehanna  Valley — Eecog- 
nition  of  the  Five  Nations  as  Subjects  of  England 
— The  Pascatoways,  or  Ganawese,  or  Conoys — 
The  Shawnees — Treaty  of  1701  with  Minquas, 
Shawnees,  Ganawese,  and  Emperor  of  Onondagas 
— New  York  Treaty  with  Five  Nations  for  peace 
with  all  the  English  colonies — The  Nanticokes — 
The  Tuscaroras — Small  expense  of  intercourse 
with  Indians. 

The  extensive  literature  on  the  subject  of  those  com- 
monly called  the  aborigines  of  the  northern  part  of  the 
United  States,  particularly  the  Handbook  of  the  Ameri- 
can Indians  North  of  Mexico,  which  is  Bulletin  30  of 
the  American  Ethnological  Bureau,  obviates  any  need 
of  filling  these  pages  with  an  account  of  the  ideas  or 
customs  of  that  fraction  of  mankind,  or  the  movements, 
except  in  a  limited  time  and  space,  of  the  political  or 
family  divisions  thereof.  Various  tribes  or  parts  of 
tribes  had  relations  with  the  Colony  of  the  Penns  dur- 
ing the  period  of  this  history,  some  of  them  separated 
by  language  as  widely  as  the  Latin  and  Teutonic  Euro- 
peans. Most  of  the  dialects  have  been  grouped  as 
Algonquian  or  Iroquoian,  and  whoever  spoke  one  of 
these  as  his  forefathers'  tongue  has  been  called  an 


The  Red  Neighbours.  91 

Algonquin  or  Iroquois,  from  the  names  of  certain  small 
tribes  with  whom  the  French  came  early  into  contact. 
It  is  more  phonetic  in  English  to  spell  the  former  name 
Algonkin,  and  more  scientific  to  speak  of  the  other 
group  as  the  Huron-Iroquois,  because  the  Hurons,  al- 
though constantly  at  war  with  the  Five  Nations,  were 
their  kindred. 

Between  those  tribes  where  the  "untutored"  of  one 
could  to  some  extent  talk  with  those  of  another,  it  is 
hard  to  state  the  exact  degree  of  relationship,  owing 
to  the  occasional  adoption  of  a  conqueror's  language, 
and  owing  to  the  figurative  use  of  the  titles  "Fathers," 
"Uncles,"  "Brothers,"  "Cousins,"  &ct.  Even  when 
not  dependent  upon  forefathers'  tradition  among  such 
illiterate  people,  but  set  down  by  Europeans  living  near 
the  time  and  place  of  events,  Indian  history  presents 
great  difficulties  in  the  exaggeration  in  the  talk  of  such 
poetic  children  of  the  forest,  and  the  doubtfulness  in 
identifying  tribes  migrating  far,  and  designated  by  the 
French,  Dutch,  Swedes,  English,  Algonquins,  and  Iro- 
quois respectively  by  names  not  always  the  transla- 
tion, phonetic  equivalent,  or  corruption  of  those  given 
by  others.  Mere  similarity  of  names  may  mean  at  most 
similarity  of  characteristics  or  of  the  natural  features 
of  place  of  residence.  The  variations  in  the  following 
pages  in  the  spelling  of  the  names  of  individuals  will 
show  the  difficulty  the  English  scribes  had  in  catching 
and  representing  the  sound,  how  often  soever  repeated 
to  them. 

As  the  pioneers  of  Virginia  had  to  face  Algonquins 
forming  the  Powhatan  confederacy,  and  the  New  Eng- 
enders had  to  face  Algonquins  called  Pequots,  Narra- 
gansetts,  &ct.,  the  Europeans  in  the  intervening  land, 
except  those  who  contemporaneously  saw  the  Susque- 
hannocks,  came  into  contact  with  Algonquins  first  as 
far  as  known.  These  Algonquins  were  such  as  spoke 
of  themselves  as  Lenni  Lenape  (in  some  dialects  Nenni 


92  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Nenape  or  Renni  Renape,  1  and  n  and  r  being  alternat- 
ing letters),  but  the  English  called  them  Delawares, 
after  the  English  name  of  their  southern  river  or  its 
bay.  Howard  M.  Jenkins,  in  Pennsylvania  Colonial  and 
Federal,  has  given  quite  a  description  of  these  Indians. 
The  reader  will  find  annotated  with  a  translation  and  a 
vocabulary  what  purports  to  be  their  epic,  the  Wolam 
Olum,  in  Dr.  Daniel  G.  Brinton's  The  Lendpe  and  their 
Legends. 

With  the  northernmost  Delawares,  the  people  of  the 
stony  land  or  mountains,  spreading  to  the  Catskills, 
this  history  has  little  to  do,  although  their  name,  Minsi 
or  Munsey  (hence  Muncy),  was  preserved  through  later 
Colonial  times.  Their  totem  was  the  wolf.  The  French 
called  the  Delawares  who  went  in  the  18th  century  to 
the  northwestern  part  of  Pennsylvania  "Loups,"  either 
because  the  advance  guard  of  the  Delawares  crossing 
the  Alleghany  Mountains  had  that  animal  as  their 
totem,  or  because  they  were  classified  with  the  Mo- 
hicans, an  Algonquin  tribe,  formerly  of  New  England, 
but  afterwards  mostly  dwelling  near  the  Delawares,  the 
name  Mohican  resembling  the  Algonquian  word  for 
wolf,  although  Brinton  suggests  a  different  meaning. 
To  the  middle  group,  the  dwellers  in  or  about  south- 
eastern Pennsylvania,  was  given  the  name  Unami,  evi- 
dently represented  in  maps  and  records  by  Armewamen 
and  Ermewarmoki;  while  the  southernmost  Lenape 
were  called  Unalachtigo,  of  which  name  some  have  seen 
Nanticokes  as  a  form.  As  the  Delawares  have  been 
spoken  of  in  tradition  as  a  confederacy,  they  may  have 
been  the  Atquanachukes — in  other  words,  confederates 
or  mixed  people — appearing  northeast  of  the  Chesa- 
peake in  Captain  John  Smith's  map,  while  possibly  a 
mixture  of  the  subdivisions  of  the  Delawares  may  have 
been  the  Aquauachuques,  or  Aquanachuques,  in  New 
Jersey  in  Nicholas  J.  Visscher's  map,  published  before 
1660. 


The  Red  Neighbours.  93 

There  was  a  tradition  that,  some  time  in  the  17th 
Century,  the  Delawares  were  tricked  by  the  Iroquois 
of  the  Five  Nations  into  assuming  the  position  of 
women,  that  is  acting  as  peacemakers,  and  so  becoming 
non-combatants.  Eshleman  would  fix  the  date  about 
1617.  The  evidence  for  the  story  does  not  necessarily 
cover  other  Delawares  than  the  Minsi;  and  against  it, 
and  particularly  against  an  early  date,  Jenkins  shows 
that  down  to  1680  the  Minsi  were  holding  their  own 
against  the  Five  Nations,  and  he  suggests  that  the  sub- 
mission to  the  latter  probably  took  place  soon  after- 
wards, as  the  result  of  defeat,  although  the  form  of  ac- 
cording them  an  honorable  rank  may  have  been  fol- 
lowed. 

Certain  small  tribes  which  appear  to  have  been,  or 
have  been  proved  to  have  been  divisions  of  the  Dela- 
wares, lived  before  the  time  of  this  history  in  what  is 
now  the  state  of  Delaware  and  the  Pennsylvania  coun- 
ties of  Delaware,  Chester,  Philadelphia,  Montgomery, 
and  Bucks.  Various  items  concerning  them  seem  in- 
consistent with  their  being  in  subjection  to  any  Iroquois 
nation,  or  even  being  non-combatants.  Capt.  John 
Smith  placed  on  the  extreme  east  of  his  map,  within 
what  is  now  New  Castle  County,  two  villages,  Chicka- 
hokin  to  the  south,  and  Macocks  to  the  north.  The 
Chickahokin,  or  Chickelaki,  have  been  supposed  to  have 
been  then  or  afterwards  about  where  Wilmington  now 
stands.  The  Ockanickon  Indians  in  1679  (Penna. 
Archives,  2nd  Series,  Vol.  VII,  p.  854)  claimed  to  be 
chief  owners  of  the  land  near  the  Falls  of  the  Delaware. 
Both  names,  Chickahokin  and  Ockanickon,  sound  like 
Okehocking,  the  name  applied  to  certain  Indians  who 
removed  from  their  settlements  near  Ridley  and  Cram 
Creeks  before  lOmo.  15,  1702.  On  that  date,  a  warrant 
was  issued  to  survey  for  Pokias,  Sepopawny,  Mutta- 
gooppa  and  others  of  the  nation  500  acres  of  the  Pro- 
prietary's land  near  the  head  of  Ridley  Creek,  formerly 


94  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Griffith  Jones's  (Willistown  Township,  Delaware  Co.), 
as  promised  by  the  Proprietary  before  his  departure 
in  1701,  the  said  500  acres  to  revert  to  the  Proprietary 
upon  said  Indians  leaving  it.  Before  1737,  the  tribe 
removed  to  the  Swatara  Creek. 

On  the  south  hook  of  South  River  Bay  (land  about 
Lewes)  in  1630,  there  were  Indians  represented  by 
Quesquaekous,  Eesanques,  and  Siconesius,  if,  indeed, 
these  were  not  tribal  names.  The  three  designated  by 
those  names  acknowledged  a  sale  having  taken  place 
in  the  preceding  year  to  Samuel  Godyn  of  land  on  the 
south  side  of  the  Bay  from  Cape  Henlopen  to  the  mouth 
of  the  South  River.  In  1677,  the  Emperor  of  the  Nan- 
ticokes  excused  himself  from  delivering  Krawacon,  who 
had  been  called  a  Gassoway  Indian,  to  the  Governor  of 
Maryland,  by  stating  that  Krawacon  belonged  to  the 
King  of  Checonnesseck,  a  town  on  Whorekill. 

The  Narratives  of  Early  Pennsylvania,  West  Jersey, 
and  Delaware,  edited  by  Albert  Cook  Myers,  give  us 
contemporary  mention  from  1633  to  1638  of  not  only 
the  Minquas,  to  be  spoken  of  in  another  part  of  this 
chapter,  but  also  the  Sankitans,  and  the  Indians  from 
Red  Hook,  or  Mantes,  and  the  Armewamen,  or  Arme- 
wanninge,  evidently  the  same  as  the  Ermewarmoki, 
of  which  Armewamen  Zee  Pentor  was  a  sachem  in  1634, 
we  being  left  to  infer  that  the  Minquas  had  caused  the 
others  to  retire  to  the  eastern  side  of  the  River  and 
Bay;  while  Nicholas  J.  Visscher's  map  of  New  Nether- 
land  &ct.  indicates  about  1655  the  spreading  of  these 
others  far  into  what  is  now  New  Jersey. 

Amandus  Johnson,  in  his  Swedish  Settlements  on  the 
Delaware  1638-1644,  tells  us,  from  contemporary  writ- 
ings, that  on  March  29,  1638,  certain  peace  sachems, 
acting  for  the  Lenni  Lenape  entitled,  sold  to  the  Swed- 
ish Florida  Company  the  land  from  Duck  Creek  to 
the  Schuylkill.  In  1640,  Indians,  undoubtedly  Lenni 
Lenape,  sold  the  west  bank  of  the  Delaware  from  the 


The  Red  Neighbours.  95 

Schuylkill  to  the  Falls,  opposite  the  present  Trenton. 
The  Mantas,  whom  Johnson  suggests  to  have  been  the 
Minquas,  but  who  are  called  in  the  Maryland  records 
Mathwas  or  Mattawass  and  ' '  Delaware  Indians, ' '  soon 
afterwards  claimed  from  Wychquahoyagh,  or  Wicacoa 
(afterwards  Weccacoe,  about  Washington  Avenue, 
Philadelphia),  to  the  aforesaid  Falls,  and  two  of  their 
chiefs  Siscohaka  and  Mechekyralames,  conveyed  it. 
The  sachems  at  Passyunk  were  mentioned  some  years 
before  1654,  when  that  locality  was  stated  to  be  the 
principal  abode  of  those  Lenape  with  whom  the  Swedes 
had  to  deal.  It  was  from  "Pesienk"  that  Kekerappan, 
hereafter  mentioned,  and  others  dated  on  Oct.  8,  1681, 
their  request  for  the  resumption  of  the  sale  of  liquor 
in  Pennsylvania. 

The  Maryland  records  tell  us  that  Pinna,  "King  of 
Picthanomicta  in  Delaware  Bay,"  on  behalf  of  "the 
Passayonke  Indians,  now  under  his  command,"  made 
peace  with  Maryland  in  1661.  In  1669,  a  league  between 
that  Province  and  the  Mathwas  nation  was  expected  to 
be  renewed  by  Capt.  Carr,  then  at  the  New  Castle 
colony,  or,  as  it  was  called,  "Delaware,"  and  said 
treaty  was  to  embrace  with  the  Maryland  Province  its 
Indian  confederates  on  the  eastern  shore  near  Chop- 
tank.  The  records  further  say  that  in  1677  the  Matta- 
was  "or  Delaware  Indians" — probably  only  a  certain 
tribe  of  the  Lenni  Lenape — were  embraced  in  a  treaty 
of  peace  made  by  the  representatives  of  Maryland  with 
the  Five  Nations. 

It  was  from  the  Unami  Delawares  that  the  English 
bought  whatever  Pennsylvania  land  south  of  the  Water 
Gap  and  east  of  the  watershed  they  acquired  from 
Indians.  Mamarikickan,  Aurichton,  Sackoquewan,  and 
Nanneckos  by  deed  of  Sep.  23,  1675,  conveyed  to 
Edmund  Andros  to  the  use  of  the  Duke  of  York  in  fee 
the  land  on  the  west  side  of  the  Delaware  River  from 
a  creek  next  to  Cold  Spring,  somewhat  above  Matinicum 


96  Chkonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Island,  about  eight  or  nine  miles  below  the  Falls,  to  a 
point  equally  far  above  the  Falls,  or  to  some  remark- 
able point  as  a  landmark,  and  all  islands  in  front  except 
the  one  commonly  called  Peter  Alricks's  Island. 

By  bargain  arranged  with  Markham,  a  number  of 
Indians,  including  two  of  the  aforesaid  four,  under  date 
of  July  15,  1682,  and  Aug.  1,  1682,  conveyed  to  Penn 
and  his  heirs  and  assigns  forever  the  eastern  end  of 
the  present  Bucks  County,  or,  as  William  W.  H.  Davis 
in  his  History  of  Bucks  County,  says,  "all  of  the  town- 
ships of  Bristol,  Falls,  Middletown,  Lower  and  the 
greater  part  of  Upper  Makefield,  Newtown,  and  a  small 
portion  of  Wrightstown,  the  line  running  about  half  a 
mile  from  its  southern  boundary. ' '  Part  of  this  was  in- 
cluded in  the  deed  to  Andros  for  the  Duke  of  York, 
which  outstanding  title  was  assigned  to  Penn  by  the 
confirmation  which  the  Duke  made  of  King  Charles's 
charter.  In  this  Indian  deed  of  July  15,  1682,  were 
included  islands  in  the  Delaware.  The  consideration 
was  not  merely  beads,  paint,  tobacco,  and  liquor,  with 
some  money,  but  also  guns,  axes,  kettles,  glasses,  hoes, 
awls,  saws,  knives,  scissors,  needles,  &ct.,  powder  and 
shot,  blankets  and  clothing — enough  to  make  it  worth 
the  savages'  while  to  alter  the  range  of  their  roaming, 
enough  to  be  a  foretaste  of  the  newcomers'  fairness. 

We  learn  from  James  Logan's  speech  to  Sassoonan 
on  Aug.  13,  1731,  that,  when  Penn  first  arrived  in  the 
country,  he  promptly  called  together  the  chief  men 
among  the  Indians,  and  explained  his  coming  with  a 
number  of  persons  by  leave  of  the  King  of  England 
to  settle  among  them,  and  that  all  should  be  brothers : 
a  league  of  friendship  was  made,  and  the  Indians 
offered  their  land  for  the  settlers,  but  Penn  insisted 
upon  buying  it.  Sassoonan  said  that  he  was  a  little  lad 
when  Penn  came,  but  remembered  that  Penn  went  up 
to  Perkasie,  and  met  the  Indians,  and  proposed  buying, 
and  Menanget,  Hetkoquean,  and  Tammany  were  pres- 


The  Red  Neighbours.  97 

ent,  and  offered  to  give  the  land  to  him.    Thus  we  find 
taking  place  at  Perkasie  (in  Bucks  Co.)  the  first  of  the 
conferences  for  making  Penn's  celebrated  treaty  with 
the  Indians ;  a  treaty  primarily  for  the  transfer  of  land, 
but  often  referred  to  by  red  men,  and  very  famous  in 
history,  for  the  promises  then  exchanged,  and  in  Penn's 
lifetime  unbroken,  of  everlasting  friendship  between  the 
races.    The  older  members  of  the  tribe  seem  to  have 
perceived  the  advantage  of  white  men  with  their  goods 
and  utensils  being  introduced  into  the  neighbourhood : 
but  we  can  conclude  that  time  was  allowed  to  consult 
those  not  present.    Instead  of  the  treaty  being  com- 
pleted, as  has  been  supposed,  in  1682,  no  deeds  from 
the  Indians  to  Penn  appear  to  have  been  made  until 
June  23.    A  second,  if  it  was  not  a  third,  conference  was 
held  in  May,  1683.    The  date  is  fixed  from  the  following 
evidence.    The  Provincial  Council  on  May  24,  1683,  ad- 
journed to  June  6.    In  connection  with  the  boundary 
dispute  and  the  interviews  mentioned  in  Chapter  II 
between  the  two  Proprietaries,  Penn  speaks  in  his  letter 
of  Aug.  14,  1683,  to  the  Lords  of  the  Committee  for 
Trade  &ct.  as  having  been  disappointed  about  meeting 
Lord  Baltimore  until  May,  when  Baltimore  sent  mes- 
sengers to  give  Penn  notice  to  meet  him  at  the  head  of 
the  Chesapeake:  "but  then,"  that  is  too  late  to  reach 
the  Chesapeake  on  the  day  fixed,  Penn  was,  he  says, 
"in  treaty  with  the  kings  of  the  Indian  nations  for 
land : ' '  however,  three  days  later,  he  came  across  Lord 
Baltimore  ten  miles  from  New  Castle,  and  took  him 
back  to  that  town,  and  entertained  him,  and  on  the  fol- 
lowing day  they  discussed  business  a  little,  and  sepa- 
rated.   These  discussions  with  Lord  Baltimore,  includ- 
ing that  on  the  day  when  Penn  met  him,  took  place  on 
May  29  and  30  (Considerations  on  Penn's  Answer  to 
Talbot's  demand,  in  Maryland  Archives);  hence  the 
session  with  the  Indians  must  have  ended  a  day  or  so 
before  May  28,  1683,  if  not  on  that  very  day.    On  the 

7 


98  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

20th  of  June,  the  Provincial  Council  adjourned  until 
the  26th.  On  the  23rd,  eleven  Indians  signed  or  wit- 
nessed deeds,  apparently  in  pursuance  of  the  treaty  in 
question,  the  deeds  perhaps  having  taken  some  time  to 
prepare.  The  proceedings  of  the  final  session,  which 
must  have  taken  place  on  June  23  or  within  two  days 
before,  are  described  in  Penn's  letter  of  August  16  to 
the  Society  of  Traders.  He  says  that  the  Indian  King 
asked  that  the  Indians  be  excused  for  not  complying 
with  Penn  l '  the  last  time, "  as  it  was  the  Indian  custom 
to  deliberate  and  take  up  much  time  in  council,  but  if 
the  young  people  and  owners  had  been  as  ready  as 
himself,  there  would  not  have  been  so  much  delay.  The 
bounds  and  the  price  were  then  spoken  of,  the  price 
being  ten  times  what  it  would  have  been  previously. 
When  the  purchase  was  agreed  upon,  Penn  says,  "great 
promises  past  between  us  of  kindness  and  good  neigh- 
bourhood, and  that  the  Indians  and  English  must  live 
in  love  as  long  as  the  sun  gave  light."  Two  of  the 
Indians  present  on  June  23  lingered  until  the  25th,  and 
were  among  the  five  witnesses  when  another  Indian 
signed  a  deed.  The  deeds  of  July  14  indicate  that  those 
at  the  treaty  who  had  bargained  for  a  specific  quantity 
of  articles,  sent  four  sachemakers  to  receive  them,  and 
make  deeds  on  that  day. 

As  to  the  place  of  one  or  both  sessions  of  the  con- 
ferences, it  is  not  known  how  late  the  locality  known  to 
the  Dutch  and  English  by  the  Delaware  name  Shacka- 
maxung  or  Shackamaxon,  meaning  "place  of  the 
Shackamakers,"  continued  to  be  a  meeting-ground;  but 
it  is  in  that  part  of  the  present  City  of  Philadelphia 
that  tradition  has  located  the  making  of  the  treaty. 
John  F.  Watson,  in  his  Annals  of  Philadelphia,  after 
other  evidence,  quotes  Judge  Peters  to  the  effect  that 
Benjamin  Lay,  who  came  to  Philadelphia  in  1731,  and 
could  have  heard  from  those  who  had  spoken  with  eye- 
witnesses, used  to  visit  a  certain  large  elm  tree,  in  the 


The  Red  Neighbours.  99 

district,  and  speak  of  it  as  at  the  site.  A  monument 
now  marks  where  the  tree  stood,  by  the  east  side  of  the 
present  Beach  Street  above  East  Columbia  Avenue. 

Of  those  Indians  present  at  the  Great  Treaty,  the 
names  of  seventeen  are  disclosed,  as  signers  or  wit- 
nesses of  the  deeds  of  June  23  and  June  25,  1683. 

The  best  known  of  the  seventeen,  and,  in  fact,  of  all 
Delawares  is  Tammany,  or,  more  correctly,  Tamanen 
(spelt  also  Taminent),  whose  virtues  James  Fenimore 
Cooper  has  perhaps  exaggerated,  and  whose  name  with 
the  prefix  ''Saint"  is  borne  by  a  political  organization, 
of  which  a  wag  may  say  that  the  totem  is  a  tiger.  It 
is  not  to  be  presumed,  however,  that  Tamanen  was  the 
presiding  ' '  King, ' '  or  the  speaker,  mentioned  in  Penn  's 
account  of  the  conference.  Tamanen  with  Metamequan 
claimed  on  June  23,  1683,  only  a  piece  of  ground  on  the 
Neshaminy  towards  the  Pemmapecka  (Pennypack) 
smaller  than  the  piece  of  Essepenaike  and  Swanpees; 
but,  by  1697,  Tamanen  had  acquired  greater  authority, 
for  in  that  year,  he,  as  a  sachemaker,  joining  with  We- 
heeland,  his  brother,  and  Weheequeckhon,  alias  Andrew, 
who  was  to  be  King  after  Tamanen 's  death,  Yaqueck- 
hon,  alias  Nicholas,  and  Quenamequid,  alias  Charles, 
Tamanen 's  sons,  confirmed  all  land  between  said  creeks 
from  the  River  Delaware  ' '  as  far  as  a  horse  can  travel 
in  two  summer  days,"  even  between  straight  lines  be- 
yond where  the  creeks  forked. 

Menangy,  or  Menanget,  whose  presence  at  Perkasie 
when  Penn  spoke  there  to  the  Indians  has  been  men- 
tioned, appears  as  Menane,  a  witness  to  two  of  the 
deeds  of  June  23,  1683. 

The  Hetkoquean  spoken  of  as  being  at  Perkasie, 
evidently  the  same  as  Hithquoquean  and  Heteoquean, 
was  an  important  chief,  about  the  time  of  Penn's 
second  visit.  He  would  seem  to  have  been  the  Idquo- 
quequon  who  was  one  of  the  grantors  of  the  eastern 
end  of  Bucks  County,  and  the  Icquoquehan  who  joined 


100  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Secane  on  5,  14,  1683,  in  conveying  the  land  lying,  ac- 
cording to  the  Archives,  along  the  west  side  of  the 
Schuylkill  beginning  at  Conshohocken  and  "thence  by 
a  westerly  line"  to  Chester  Creek.  Hittoken,  as  the 
scribe  set  down  the  name  of  a  witness  to  a  deed  of  June 
23,  was  clearly  Hetkoquean. 

Prominent  as  Menangy  and  Hithquoquean  after- 
wards became,  the  most  important  grantors  known  to 
have  been  at  the  Treaty  besides  Tammany,  were  Esse- 
penaike,  Swanpisse,  and  Sahoppe.  There  are  several 
mistakes  in  the  printing  in  Penna.  Archives,  1st  Series, 
Vol.  I,  of  the  deed  of  Aug.  1,  1682,  for  the  eastern  end 
of  Bucks  County  and  its  endorsement.  The  original 
is  preserved  by  the  Historical  Society.  The  name  of 
one  of  the  right  owners,  misprinted  "first  owners,"  of 
certain  land  is  not  Eytepamatpetts,  but  Essepamar- 
hatte,  evidently  the  same  as  Essepenaike.  Essepenaike 
and  Swanpisse  conveyed  their  share,  greater  than 
Tamanen's,  on  the  Neshaminy  on  June  23,  1683;  and 
Essepenaike  came  again  in  September  to  witness 
Kekerappan's  deed,  and  was  also  one  of  the  sache- 
makers  and  "right  owners"  who,  in  1685,  conveyed 
all  the  land  from  Chester  Creek  to  Duck  Creek,  extend- 
ing in  depth  from  the  Delaware  as  far  as  a  man  can 
ride  in  two  days  with  a  horse.  Swanpisse,  or  Swan- 
pees,  was  one  of  those  who  conveyed  to  Penn  before 
the  latter 's  arrival  the  eastern  corner  of  Bucks  County, 
bounded  on  the  south  by  the  Neshaminy,  besides  being 
so  important  a  personage  on  the  other  side  of  that 
stream.  Sahoppe,  or  Enshockhuppo,  or  Shakahoppoh, 
was  another  who  joined  in  the  deed  for  the  eastern  end 
of  Bucks  County.  He  witnessed  deeds  of  June  23, 1683, 
and  shortly  afterwards  his  jurisdiction  extended  across 
both  the  Neshaminy  and  the  Pennypack  back  of  the 
Jericho  and  Conshohocken  range;  he  joining  in  one 
grant  from  Chester  Creek  to  the  Pennypack  and  also 
in  a  grant  from  the  Pennypack  to  the  Delaware  above 


The  Red  Neighbours.  101 

the  Jericho  Hills,  which  latter  grant  gave  rise  to  the 
notorious  Indian  Walk,  to  be  mentioned  in  a  later 
chapter.  Richard,  or  Mettamicont  (the  Indian  name 
being  sometimes  written  Metamequan),  joined  in  one 
deed,  and  witnessed  two  others,  of  June  23,  1683,  and 
surrendered  his  land  on  the  Delaware  on  both  sides  of 
the  Pemmapecca,  or  Pennypack,  a  year  later. 

Kekerappamand  (misprinted  as  Peterappamand), 
who  joined  in  the  aforesaid  endorsement  dated  Aug.  1, 
1682,  was  evidently  Kekerappan  (misprinted  in  body 
of  deed  with  1  for  r),  described  as  of  Opasiskunk,  evi- 
dently Passyunk,  who  made  a  deed  on  7,  10,  1683,  for 
the  half  on  the  Susquehanna  side  of  all  his  lands  be- 
tween the  Delaware  and  the  Susquehanna,  promising 
to  sell  on  returning  from  hunting  in  the  following- 
Spring  the  other  half  as  reasonably  as  other  Indians 
had  sold  ' '  in  this  river. ' '  This  he  seems  to  have  done, 
in  part  at  least,  by  joining  in  1685  in  the  conveyance 
of  the  land  on  the  Delaware  from  Chester  Creek  to 
Duck  Creek. 

Machaloha,  whose  deed  to  Penn  of  October,  1683,  is 
in  bad  preservation,  and  who  also  joined  in  the  con- 
veyance of  the  land  from  Chester  Creek  to  Duck  Creek, 
rather  exceeded  Kekerappan  in  claims,  being  called,  in 
October,  1683,  owner  of  the  land  on  Delaware  Bay, 
Chesapeake  Bay,  and  up  to  the  Falls  of  the  Susque- 
hanna River.  He  seems  to  have  been  the  same  person 
as  Ocahale,  or  Owehela,  living  afterwards  on  the 
Christiana,  and,  if  so,  is  one  of  the  few  Delaware  sache- 
makers  whom  Penn  saw  who  can  be  traced  for  more 
than  about  five  years. 

In  1685,  four  Indians,  including  some  before  men- 
tioned, conveyed  to  Penn  by  bargain  with  Surveyor- 
General  Holme  both  sides  of  the  Schuylkill  above  Con- 
shohocken  from  Chester  Creek  to  the  Pemmapecka  as 
far  northwestwardly  as  two  full  days  journey,  and  thir- 
teen other  sachemakers  and  right  owners,   three   of 


LTBRA.RY 

TJNTVEPSTTY  OFT't  TT^OPNIA 
SANTA  BARBARA 


102  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

whom  have  just  been  named,  conveyed  the  west  side  of 
the  Delaware  from  Chester  Creek  to  Quing  Quingas, 
or  Duck  Creek,  backwards  ' '  as  far  as  a  man  can  ride  in 
two  days  with  a  horse." 

Apparently,  such  Delawares  as  were  represented  by 
the  before-mentioned  sachemakers  could  migrate  or 
make  peace  or  war  as  they  pleased  until  about  the  time 
of  Penn's  second  visit,  and  then  bodies  not  small  enough 
to  be  overlooked  probably  agreed  to  pay  tribute  to  the 
Five  Nations.  Any  earlier  "conquest"  left  them  quite 
autonomous. 

A  considerable  number,  rather  from  the  central  part 
of  the  land  which  had  been  bought  by  or  for  Penn,  i.e. 
from  nearest  the  capital  town  or  its  liberties,  had  moved 
up  the  Schuj^lkill  to  within  the  present  limits  of  Berks 
County  by  the  beginning  of  1690,  Capt.  Cock  and  others 
then  going  thither  to  reassure  the  "chief  sachem  of  our 
Indians"  of  the  good  intentions  of  the  Pennsylvanians. 
Menangy,  who  was  among  the  Delawares  about  to  be 
mentioned  as  waiting  upon  Markham  in  1694,  was  at  the 
time,  or  became  soon  afterwards,  the  head  of  the  In- 
dians on  the  Schuylkill. 

Within  a  few  years  after  the  purchase  of  the  land 
between  Chester  and  Duck  Creeks,  Penn,  writing  from 
England,  if  not,  indeed,  his  Commissioners  at  the  time 
of  the  purchase,  regranted,  for  at  least  temporary  occu- 
pancy, a  mile  on  each  side  of  the  Brandywine  from  the 
mouth  up  to  the  forks,  and  thence  up  the  west  branch 
to  the  head.  On  7,  5,  1691,  six  Indians,  of  whom  the 
names  are  hard  to  identify  with  those  printed  as  sign- 
ing the  deed  of  1685,  acknowledged  receipt  of  full  pay- 
ment for  the  land  between  Chester  and  Duck  Creeks 
"according  to  a  certain  deed  signed  by  us  unto  William 
Penn,"  and  the  minutes  of  7th  month  19,  say  that  on 
said  5th  of  the  month,  the  Indians,  after  being  paid, 
desired  that  the  Brandywine  Creek  might  be  opened 
in  order  that  the  fish  could  go  up,  according  to  the 


The  Eed  Neighbours.  103 

contract  with  the  Proprietary,  and  thereupon  a  letter 
was  sent  to  the  County  Court  at  New  Castle  to  take 
course  according  to  law.  The  writing  which  the 
Indians  alleged  to  have  made  the  grant  was  destroyed 
in  the  burning  of  a  cabin,  and  there  was  no  copy.  In 
1706,  on  the  Indians  insisting  that  the  grant  was  of 
absolute  ownership  forever,  the  Commissioners  bought 
from  them  the  lower  part  of  the  strip,  as  far  as  a 
certain  rock  on  the  west  branch  in  Newlin  Township 
for  1001. ,  paying  down  731.  In  1725,  Checohinican,  or, 
Checochinican,  was  a  leading  sachem  in  the  neighbour- 
hood. In  that  year,-  several  of  the  tribe  appeared  before 
the  Assembly,  and  claimed  part  of  the  tract  formerly 
of  the  Society  of  Traders,  bought  by  Newlin,  and  Gov- 
ernor Keith  issued  an  order  for  the  demolition  of 
certain  dams  and  weirs  interfering  with  the  fishing. 
In  1726,  the  Land  Commissioners,  on  further  complaint, 
paid  the  balance  of  the  100Z.,  and  gave  Newlin  some 
land  in  exchange.  A  law  about  this  time  was  passed  by 
the  Assembly  of  the  Lower  Counties  for  keeping  the 
dam  of  the  mill  on  said  Creek  in  New  Castle  County 
open  during  the  fishing  season,  authorizing  the  Sheriff 
to  throw  down  the  dam:  in  March,  1727,  on  complaint 
of  the  Indians,  the  Sheriff  was  ordered  to  carry  out  the 
law.  Up  the  stream,  Indian  privileges  required  atten- 
tion in  1729 :  Checochinican  complained,  that,  contrary 
to  a  writing  by  Newlin  agreeing  not  to  disturb  the 
Indians,  the  land  had  been  sold,  and  they  were  forbid- 
den to  use  the  timber  for  building  some  cabins,  and  fur- 
ther that  the  town  at  the  head  of  Brandywine  had  been 
surveyed  for  James  Gibbons  and  others,  who  were  ex- 
pecting a  conveyance  from  the  Commissioners  of  Prop- 
erty. This  would  indicate  that  some  of  the  tribe  had  gone 
as  far  as  the  present  Honeybrook  Township.  J.  Smith 
Futhey  and  Gilbert  Cope,  in  their  History  of  Chester 
County,  have  located  an  Indian  village  in  the  present 
Wallace  Township,  where  Indiantown   School  House 


104  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

stood  when  they  wrote:  they  also  say  that  another 
Indian  village  was  on  the  north  side  of  the  west  branch 
near  the  line  of  the  Society's  land,  and  that  there  Indian 
Hannah,  last  of  her  race  in  the  County,  dwelt  for  many 
years.  Watson  says  that  she  died  in  1803,  nearly  one 
hundred  years  old,  and  that  about  the  time  of  the  Revo- 
lutionary war  she  with  the  rest  of  her  family,  Andrew, 
Sarah,  and  Nanny,  were  living  in  Kennet. 

In  1694,  when  the  Onondagas  and  Senecas  sent  to 
the  Delawares  asking  them  to  be  "partners  with  them" 
in  fighting  the  French,  Hithquoquean,  Shakhuppo, 
Menanzes,  Tamanen,  and  Alemeon  (possibly  Alaenoh, 
witness  to  one  of  the  deeds  of  June  23,  1683),  and  also 
Mohocksey,  who  may  have  been  a  king  of  the  Lenape 
in  New  Jersey,  came  with  other  Delawares  and  two 
Susquehanna  chiefs  to  see  Lieutenant-Governor  Mark- 
ham;  and  Hithquoquean,  on  behalf  of  the  Delawares, 
announced  their  resolve  to  live  as  a  peaceable  people, 
being  but  weak  and  very  few  in  number.  The  Onon- 
dagas and  Senecas  had,  in  the  message,  reproached  the 
Delawares  with  the  very  thing  which  tradition  says 
that  the  Five  Nations  had  long  before  that  time  imposed 
upon  them,  viz :  doing  nothing  but  staying  at  home  and 
boiling  the  pots  like  women.  The  Lieutenant-Governor 
commended  the  visitors  for  not  engaging  in  war  with- 
out the  advice  and  consent  of  Governor  Fletcher,  who, 
on  his  visit  to  Philadelphia  for  aid  against  the  French, 
had  secured  some  money,  but  had  permitted  the  people 
of  the  Province  to  stay  at  home  to  defend  it.  The 
Delawares  were  assured  that  Governor  Fletcher  would 
take  care  that  the  Senecas  should  do  them  no  injury  on 
account  of  their  refusal. 

In  1697,  a  considerable  body  of  the  Delawares,  enu- 
merated as  300  men, — the  small  number  of  persons  in 
any  Indian  nation  must  surprise  the  uninformed, — were 
tributary  to  the  Susquehannas  and  Senecas  around 
about  Conestoga.     Fifty  were  at  Minquannan,  men- 


The  Red  Neighbours.  105 

tioned  as  about  nine  miles  from  the  head  of  the  Elk 
River,  fifteen  miles  from  Christeen,  and  thirty  miles 
from  Susquehanna,  and  the  rest  of  the  body  on  Brandy- 
wine  and  Upland  Creeks.  All,  as  well  as  the  Susque- 
hannas  and  Shawnees,  were  said  to  be  inclined  to 
attach  themselves  to  the  government  of  Maryland,  as 
they  hunted  between  the  Susquehanna  River  and  the 
Potomac.  The  Delaware  "King"  offered  that  his 
Indians,  if  perniitted  to  hunt  between  those  rivers, 
would  watch  the  movements  of  the  Naked  Indians,  or 
Twightwees  (Miamis).  For  some  time,  Owehela,  or 
Ocahale,  appears  as  the  most  prominent  Delaware 
Indian  on  the  Christiana.  On  Aug.  29,  1700,  he,  as 
"Ocahale,  King  of  the  Delaware  Indians,"  joined  with 
the  King  of  the  Shawnees,  and  with  Indian  Harry, 
representing  the  King  of  the  Susquehannocks,  in  a 
treaty  confirming  former  peace  and  amity  with  Mary- 
land, making  themselves  answerable  for  injuries  done 
by  other  Indians  to  the  inhabitants  of  that  province, 
and  promising,  upon  damage  done  by  neighbouring 
Indians,  to  assist  against  them,  and  pursue,  and,  if  pos- 
sible, capture  and  bring  them  for  the  government  to 
deal  with  them. 

There  were  Indians  at  Lechay,  or  Lehigh,  during 
Penn's  second  visit,  who  were  probably  Delawares.  He 
consulted  Oppemenyhood  of  that  place  upon  the  law 
prohibiting  the  sale  of  rum. 

Penn  during  his  second  visit  to  America  gave  the 
Delaware  chief  Heteoquean  a  belt  to  carry  to  the  Five 
Nations.  Heteoquean  died  soon  afterwards,  and  the 
belt  was  not  exhibited  to  the  great  men  of  those  Nations 
until  1712. 

The  early  travellers  from  Europe  to  our  Middle 
States,  proceeding  into  the  interior,  found  a  different 
race  of  Indians.  The  Hudson  and  the  Mohawk  afforded 
the  Dutch  traders  access  to  villages  inhabited  by  those 
to  whom  the  French  were  extending  the  name  Iroquois, 


106  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

and  to  whom  in  time  they  restricted  that  word.  There 
were  five  main  tribes,  called  by  themselves  respectively 
by  a  derivative  of  "the  place  of  flint,"  "the  rock  set 
up,"  "top  of  the  mountain,"  "where  locusts  were 
obtained,"  and  "the  great  mountain."  The  English 
of  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  called  them  respectively 
Maquas  or  Mohawks,  Oneidas,  Onondagas,  Cayugas, 
and  Sinnondowannes  or  Senecas.  The  Marylanders 
classed  all  as  Cynegoes,  or  Senecas,  or  Jonadoes,  just 
as  some  of  the  Dutch  had  confused  the  various  names 
of  these  tribes.  According  to  De  Denonville  (Penna. 
Archives,  2nd  Series,  Vol.  VI),  writing  in  1685,  the 
Sonontouans,  as  he  called  the  Senecas,  then  outnum- 
bered the  four  other  tribes  combined,  the  Anie 
(Mohawks)  having  200  fighting  men;  the  Oneyoust 
(Oneidas),  150;  the  Onontague,  300;  the  Goyoguoain 
(Cayugas),  200:  while  the  Senecas  were  reported  to 
have  1200. 

Although  certain  of  these  tribes  had  continued  to 
make  war  independently  of  the  others,  the  five  long 
before  that  year  united  in  a  confederacy,  at  first  a  loose 
one,  and  are  known  collectively  in  English  history  as 
the  Five  Nations,  and  more  properly  after  1712,  when 
the  Tuscaroras  were  added,  as  the  Six  Nations.  The 
Onondagas  had  the  precedency.  At  their  castle  was 
held  the  great  council,  called  from  the  place  of  meeting 
"the  Long  House,"  in  which  much  of  such  government 
as  there  was  among  Indians  became  centralized.  Yet 
some  "States  rights,"  and  even  some  conquered  lands 
and  vassals  belonged  to  particular  tribes. 

The  use  of  guns,  powder,  and  shot  introduced  by  the 
Dutch  among  the  Indians  of  the  Mohawk  Valley  gave 
them  a  great  advantage  over  enemies  armed  with  bows 
and  arrows ;  and  the  Five  Nations  started  upon  a  career 
of  conquest,  which  their  ferocity  maintained  after  other 
Europeans   provided   the   neighbouring   savages   with 


The  Bed  Neighbours.  107 

weapons,  and  which  ended  in  the  mastery  of  the  interior 
of  New  York  and  Pennsylvania. 

The  policy  of  the  Dutch  at  New  York  of  amity  and 
almost  mutual  aid  and  comfort  with  the  Five  Nations, 
remained,  after  the  acquisition  of  that  region  by  the 
English,  the  policy  of  the  government  there,  so  largely 
did  the  Dutch  families  control  Indian  relations,  if  not 
other  affairs.  This  policy  was  necessary  while  the  New 
Englanders  were  engaged  in  crushing  the  Algonquins 
in  their  vicinity ;  and  when  it  was  becoming  clear  that 
the  Five  Nations  would  dominate  the  border  between 
the  Duke  of  York's  possessions  and  Canada,  it  seemed 
the  sharpest  politics  to  ally  with  the  winning  side. 

Only  straggling  members  of  any  of  the  five  tribes 
lived  near  the  parts  of  Pennsylvania  civilized  before 
Penn's  death;  but  the  earliest  traders  who  went  from 
the  Schuylkill  and  the  Brandywine  to  the  headwaters  of 
the  Octorara  and  the  Conestoga  associated  with  certain 
Indians  of  the  same  stock.  To  these  and  to  all  the 
Iroquois,  the  Lenni  Lenape  applied  the  epithet  Mingwe, 
treacherous.  Amandus  Johnson,  in  his  book  already 
quoted,  gives  the  various  forms  ' '  Mingo,  Minqua,  Min- 
quaes,"  &ct.,  in  which  this  name  was  used  by  Swedes 
and  Dutch  to  denote  the  interior  people  with  whom  the 
settlers  on  the  Delaware  came  in  contact.  There  Avas 
a  tribe  called  the  ' '  White  Minquas, ' '  and  one  called  the 
"Black  Minquas,"  probably  from  their  costume  or 
paint.  If  Sir  Edmund  Andros  was  correct  as  to  the 
relationship  of  the  Susquehanna  Indians  and  the  Mo- 
hawks, the  latter  would  seem  to  have  been  the  Black 
Minquas,  often  no  more  friendly  with  the  White  Min- 
quas than  near  blood  relations  sometimes  are.  Yet 
the  identity  of  the  Black  Minquas  remains  a  puzzle: 
they  were  sufficiently  numerous  in  1681  to  be  reported 
as  joining  the  Sindondowannes  in  war.  The  White 
Minquas  are  supposed  to  have  been  those  almost  in- 
variably meant  by  the  simple  word  Minquas  or  Min- 


108  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

goes,  viz :  the  Indians  whose  chief  seat  was  on  the  lower 
Susquehanna  during  the  days  of  the  Swedes  and  Dutch. 
On  the  probability  that  the  occupants  of  the  region  had 
not  changed,  H.  Frank  Eshleman  in  his  "Lancaster 
Comity  Indians — Annals  of  the  Susquehannocks  Set." 
has  traced  them  from  Capt.  John  Smith's  first  mention 
of  the  Sasquesahanock  in  his  Description  of  Virginia: 
in  fact,  following  A.  L.  Guss's  Early  Indian  History  of 
Susquehanna,  from  Smith's  mention  of  the  Pacough- 
tronack  in  his  True  Relation.  As  one  guess  at  Indian 
history  is  about  as  good  as  another,  the  hypothesis  may 
be  here  offered,  accounting  for  some  items  to  follow 
later  about  the  Pascatoways,  that,  as  the  syllable  "pak" 
in  Algonquian  conveys  the  idea  of  division  or  duality, 
the  name  embracing  it  was  used  in  the  days  of  Smith 
and  others  to  denote  the  people  of  a  dual  empire,  com- 
posed of  an  Iroquoian  and  an  Algonquian  part,  the 
latter  being  dominant,  and  continuing  after  the  seces- 
sion of  the  former  to  be  called  by  the  name  of  the  whole. 
The  dwellers  on  the  Susquehanna,  who  were  thus  the 
Iroquoian  part,  and  who,  Edmund  Andros  in  1675  said, 
were  "offsprings  of  the  Maques  (Mohawks),"  were  de- 
scribed as  Sasquesahannock,  from  Sasquesahanna,  the 
Algonquian  name  of  the  river,  evidently  by  Algonquian- 
speaking  Indians  on  the  Chesapeake  and  the  Delaware. 
Smith  knew  the  great  enemies  of  his  Sasquesahanock 
as  Massowomekes,  a  name  remarkably  like  Matta- 
women,  that  of  a  tribe  afterwards  connected  with  the 
Pascatoways :  notwithstanding  the  usual  identification 
with  the  Five  Nations,  the  Massowomekes  may  have 
been  the  Pascatoways,  long  alternately  lords  and  ene- 
mies. The  final  emancipation  from  them  appears  to 
have  been  after  Lord  Baltimore  began  the  settlement 
of  Maryland.  The  Susquehanna  Indians  called  them- 
selves, or  were  called  by  their  Iroquoian  kindred  Ganes- 
togas,  hence  our  word  Conestoga,  and  even  our  word 
"stogy"  for  a  Pennsylvania  cigar.    It  would  seem  from 


The  Red  Neighbours.  109 

the  creek  now  called  Conestoga  being  so  called  in  Her- 
man's map  that  before  its  date  their  chief  seat  was 
near  there,  and  may  have  been  that  marked  "fort  de- 
molished" on  Chambers's  survey  (see  George  Smith's 
Hist,  of  Delaware  County).    The  Susquehannocks  by 
treaty  of  July  5,  1652,  conveyed  to  the  Marylanders  the 
land  on  the  western  side  of  the  Chesapeake  from  the 
Patuxent  to  Palmer's  Island,  and  on  the  eastern  side 
from  the  Choptank  to  the  North  East  branch  which  lies 
north  of  the  Elk,  except  Kent  and  Palmer's  Island,  be- 
longing to  Capt.  Clayborne;  both  English  and  Indians 
being  allowed  to  build  a  house  or  fort  on  Palmer's 
Island.    In  1744,  the  Six  Nations  testified  to  the  great- 
ness of  the  Susquehannocks'  empire  by  acknowledging 
that  the  grantors  in  this  deed  of  more  than  ninety  years 
before,  had  the  ownership  of  the  land  of  which  they  so 
undertook  to  dispose.    The  printed  Maryland  Archives 
and  the  printed  Jesuit  Relations  mention  continuously 
the  Indians  living  north  of  the  land  so  conveyed,  the 
Maryland  Archives  always  giving  them  the  same  name 
as  the  great  river,  as  did  also  the  Duke's  Governors  of 
New  York,  and  the  Jesuit  Relations  employing  appar- 
ently the  Iroquoian  name  in  the  form,  which  may  be  a 
slight  modification,  ' '  Andasto-eronnons  "  or  "Andasto- 
genronons."     The  element  "roona"  was  a  suffix  for 
the  plural  in  Iroquoian.     The  village,  or  capital,  ap- 
pears in  the  Relations  as  "Andastogue."    The  records 
of  the  Province  of  Pennsylvania  use  indiscriminately 
all  three  names  Mingoes  (or  Minquays),  Susquehannas, 
and  Conestogas.     For  a  long  period,  these  Susque- 
hannocks, often  helped  by  Maryland,  were  victorious 
in  war  against  some  of  the  Five  Nations,  the  fortress 
being  moved  to  where  Herman  depicted  it.    Eshleman 
quotes  the  Relations,  Vol.  59,  p.  251,  to  show  that,  about 
1672,  the  Iroquois  succeeded  in  subjugating  the  tribe 
so  much  feared,  or,  in  the  words  of  the  priest,  "the 
Sonnonlouaies  have  utterly  defeated  the  Andaste,  their 


110  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

ancient  and  most  redoubtable  foe."  The  government 
of  Maryland  seems  to  have  forsaken  them  about  this 
time,  punishing  them  for  offences  of  which  perhaps 
none  of  them  were  guilty;  and  thus  another  Colony 
than  New  York  contributed  to  making  the  Five  Nations 
supreme  as  far  as  the  Potomac.  After  a  second  defeat, 
called  an ' '  extermination, ' '  many  Susquehannocks  were 
taken  to  live  with  their  conquerors ;  the  relation  before 
long  became  that  of  friends,  and  the  conquered  were 
believed  to  be  stirring  up  the  "Senecas"  to  depreda- 
tions upon  Maryland.  The  great  war  captain  Har- 
ignera,  on  the  other  hand,  had  saved  a  remnant.  He 
soon  died,  but  his  followers  and  other  detachments  were 
for  some  time  strong  enough  to  menace  the  whites  both 
north  and  south  of  the  Potomac.  A  considerable  body, 
revenging  the  murder  of  five  principal  chiefs  at  a  peace 
parley,  raided  Virginia,  tomahawking  the  settlers,  until 
defeated  by  Nathaniel  Bacon,  whose  assumption  of 
authority  is  called  Bacon's  Rebellion.  A  detachment 
of  those  who  had  gone  to  Virginia  and  probably  some 
others  went  back  to  the  old  Susquehanna  Fort,  "sixty 
miles  above  Palmer's  Island," — pretty  clearly  the  loca- 
tion designated  for  the  fort  by  Herman's  map, — and 
made  submission  to  the  "Senecas,"  but  asked  for  peace 
with  Maryland.  After  various  events,  peace  was  made 
between  Maryland  and  the  Five  Nations  and  the  Sus- 
quehannocks under  them;  after  which  the  number  of 
Senecas  or  so-called  Senecas  within  what  is  now  Lan- 
caster and  York  Counties  in  Pennsylvania  increased. 

The  Swedes  had  bought  the  claim  of  certain  Minqua 
chiefs  as  far  as  the  Susquehanna  River.  To  acquire 
what  had  been  beyond  those  chiefs'  possessions  or  the 
title  or  good-will  of  those  who  were  their  lords  para- 
mount, Penn  in  July,  1683  (see  his  letter  to  Brockles  and 
West,  Penna.  Archives,  2nd  Series,  Vol.  VII,  p.  3),  sent 
William  Haig  (called  Wm.  in  the  letter),  to  be  accom- 
panied by  James  Graham  of  New  York,  to  treat  with  the 


The  Red  Neighbours.  Ill 

Mohawks  and  Seneca s  and  their  allies  for  the  land 
fronting  on  the  Susquehanna.  According  to  Rev.  Jean 
de  Lamberville  's  letter  of  Jany.  31  following — the  date 
is  Feb.  10, 1684,  new  style — the  white  people  at  Albany 
worked  upon  the  Indians,  and  through  Oreouahe,  the 
Cayuga,  circumvented  the  sale  of  the  land  of  the  con- 
quered Andastogues  (Penna.  Archives,  2nd  Series,  Vol. 
VI).  The  Indians  had  much  contention  as  to  one  an- 
other's rights,  but  appear  to  have  agreed  on  one  point, 
and  to  have  delivered  sufficient  answer,  even  before  the 
Indian  Commissioners  received  a  letter  from  the  new 
Governor  of  New  York,  written  on  September  18,  by 
the  advice  of  his  Council,  to  stop  Penn's  negotiations 
until  his  boundaries  should  be  adjusted.  Thomas  Don- 
gan,  who  was  the  Governor,  was,  in  everything  con- 
nected with  these  lands,  guilty  of  treachery  or  double 
dealing  or  at  least  vacillation.  Canassatego  said  in 
1744  at  Lancaster  that  the  Governor  of  New  York  had 
advised  the  Five  Nations  to  put  the  land  into  his 
hands,  instead  of  Penn's,  and  promised  to  keep  it 
for  the  Five  Nations'  use,  but  the  Governor  went  away 
to  England,  and  sold  it  to  Onas  (a  quill,  the  translation 
of  Penn,  which  they  thought  meant  a  goose's  quill)  for 
a  large  sum  of  money,  and,  when  they  were  minded  to 
sell  Onas  some  lands,  Onas  said  that  he  had  bought 
them  from  that  Governor,  but,  on  hearing  how  the  Gov- 
ernor had  deceived  the  Five  Nations,  Onas  paid  them 
for  the  lands  over  again.  The  Indians,  making  their 
marks  to  a  writing  since  lost,  gave  the  Susquehanna 
River,  i.e.  the  valley  of  it,  to  Dongan,  as  he  mentions  to 
Penn  in  a  letter  of  October  10,  1683.  In  a  letter  of 
October  22  to  the  same,  Dongan  speaks  of  a  second 
gift  of  the  River  from  the  Indians,  adding  "about 
which  you  and  I  shall  not  fall  out."  What  the  Five 
Nations  intended,  appears  in  the  speech  of  the  Onon- 
dagas  and  Cayugas  on  Aug.  2,  1684,  in  the  Town  Hall 
at  Albany  to  Governor  Dongan  and  Lord  Howard  of 


112  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Effingham,  Governor  of  Virginia:  ''You  will  protect 
us  from  the  French,  which  if  you  do  not,  we  shall  lose 
all  our  hunting  and  bevers.  We  have  put  all  our  lands 
and  ourselves  under  the  protection  of  the  great  Duke 
of  York  ...  we  have  given  the  Susquehanne 
River,  which  we  won  with  the  sword,  to  this  government, 
.  .  .  and  will  not  that  any  of  your  Penn's  people 
shall  settle  upon  the  Susquehanne  River  ...  we 
do  give  you  two  white  drest  deer  skins  to  be  sent  to 
the  great  sachem  Charles  that  he  may  write  upon  them 
and  put  a  great  red  seal  to  them  that  we  do  put  the 
Susquehanne  River  above  the  Washinta  or  Falls  and 
all  the  rest  of  our  land  under  the  great  Duke  of  York 
and  to  nobody  else  .  .  .  and  we  will  neither  join 
ourselves  nor  our  land  to  any  other  government.  .  .  . 
You,  great  man  of  Virginia,  we  let  you  know  that  Great 
Penn  did  speak  to  us  here  in  Corlear's  house" — the 
Governor  of  New  York  was  called  "Corlear" — "by  his 
[Penn's]  agents  and  desired  to  buy  the  Susquehanne 
River,  but  we  would  not  hearken  to  him  nor  come  under 
his  government,  and  therefore  desire  you  to  be  a  wit- 
ness ...  we  are  a  free  people  uniting  ourselves 
to  what  sachem  we  please."  A  note  in  the  Documentary 
History  of  New  York  says  that  the  Falls  were  those 
in  the  present  Bradford  County,  Pennsylvania;  but  it 
is  evident  that  the  claim  of  sovereignty  extended  as  far 
south  as  the  Falls  near  the  Conewago. 

The  fact  that  the  Cayugas  were  the  only  nation  join- 
ing the  Onondagas  in  this  speech,  and  that  about 
thirty-five  years  later  the  Cayugas  claimed  the  lower 
Susquehanna,  and  that,  moreover,  the  Mohawks,  were 
about  the  middle  of  the  XVIIIth  Century  deemed  to 
have  no  share  in  the  land  further  north  sold  by  the 
Five  Nations,  is  not  easily  explained.  It  may  mean 
that  the  conquest  of  the  Susquehannocks  was  chiefly 
the  work  of  the  Cayugas,  or  in  pursuance  of  their  sup- 
posed early  rights. 


The  Red  Neighbours.  113 

After  the  Duke  of  York  had  ascended  the  throne, 
and  then  had  fled  from  it,  his  friend  Dongan,  who  had 
become  Earl  of  Limerick,  transferred  to  Penn  what 
title  Dongan  had  to  the  lands  of  the  Seneca-Susque- 
hanna Indians.  Reciting  his  purchase  from  them  of 
land  on  both  sides  of  the  Susquehanna  River  with  the 
adjacent  lakes  from  the  head  of  the  River  to  Chesa- 
peake Bay,  Dongan  conveyed  this  to  William  Penn  and 
his  heirs  and  assigns  by  lease  and  release  dated  Jany. 
12  and  13,  1696.  A  few  months  after  this,  the  Sus- 
quehannas  and  Senecas  at  Carristoga  (Conestoga)  were 
reported  as  forty  young  men  besides  women  and  chil- 
dren. On  7mo.  13,  1700,  Dongan 's  release  to  Penn 
having  been  shown  to  Widaagh,  alias  Orytyagh  (Oret- 
tyagh),  and  Andaggy-Junkquagh,  styled  "Kings  or 
Sachemas  of  the  Susquehannagh  Indians,"  they,  in  con- 
sideration of  some  goods,  and  of  Penn's  former  ex- 
penses in  making  the  purchase,  deeded  to  Penn  and  his 
heirs  and  assigns  the  Susquehanna  River  and  its  islands 
and  land  on  both  sides  of  the  river  formerly  the  right 
of  the  nation  called  the  Susquehannagh  Indians,  or  by 
what  name  they  were  known,  and  confirmed  the  bargain 
and  sale  made  to  Dongan.  In  July,  1721,  Civility,  "a 
descendant  of  the  ancient  Susquehannah  Indians,  the 
old  settlers  of  these  parts,  but  now  reputed  as  of  an 
Iroquois  descent,"  said  that  he  had  been  informed  by 
their  old  men  that  they  were  troubled  when  they  heard 
that  their  lands  had  been  given  up  to  a  place  so  far 
distant  as  New  York,  and  that  they  were  overjoyed 
when  they  understood  William  Penn  had  bought  them 
back  again,  and  that  they  had  confirmed  all  their  right 
to  him. 

James  II  having  avowed  his  sovereignty  over  the 
Five  Nations,  and  undertaken  to  protect  them,  and  they 
having  supported  the  English  in  the  war  carried  on 
by  William  III,  recognition  of  those  tribes  as  English 


114  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

subjects  was  made  by  the  French  King  in  the  following 
sentence  in  the  treaty  of  Ryswick  : 

Les  habitans  de  Canada  &  autres,  Sujets  de  la  France, 
ne  molesteront  point  a  l'avenir  les  cinq  Nations  ou 
Cantons  des  Indiens  soumis  a  la  Grande  Bretagne  ni 
les  autres  Nations  de  l'Amerique,  amies  de  cette  Cou- 
ronne.    (Du  Mont's  Corps  Diplomatique.) 

This  gave  the  English  the  foundation  of  a  claim  that 
the  French  had  yielded,  or  recognized  as  belonging  to 
England,  all  the  territory  of  the  Five  Nations  and  of 
the  tribes  subject  to  them,  such  as  the  Delawares,  Sus- 
quehannocks,  Ganawese,  Pennsylvania  Shawnees,  and 
the  natives  around  Lake  Erie.  France,  on  the  contrary, 
about  the  time  at  which  this  history  closes,  insisted 
that  there  was  only  a  stipulation  for  the  safety  of  per- 
sons, and  that  the  territory  in  question  followed  a 
clause  in  the  treaty  surrendering  to  the  parties  what 
each  had  before  the  war,  and  that  France  had  then 
owned,  by  right  of  discovery,  all  the  land  drained  by 
the  Ohio  and  the  Great  Lakes. 

Besides  the  Delawares,  Susquehannocks,  and  Five 
Nations,  certain  remnants  or  detachments  of  tribes, 
nearly  all  of  them  Algonquian,  were  to  be  found  within 
Penn's  boundaries  before  his  death.  The  reader  is 
referred  to  Charles  A.  Hanna's  compendious  work, 
The  Wilderness  Trail,  for  many  items  in  the  history  of 
all  the  Indians  with  whom  our  frontiersmen  came  in 
contact,  also  for  a  presentation  of  evidence  of  much 
that  is  here  written,  and  for  narratives  of  the  adven- 
tures of  individuals,  which,  as  mere  local  history,  are 
not  mentioned  here. 

Hanna  has  said  very  little  about  the  Pascatoways, 
mentioned  on  a  preceding  page,  as  to  whom  some  facts 
must  now  be  given.  They  are  usually  called  in  the 
Pennsylvania  records,  Ganevi,  Ganawese,  or  Conoys, 
from  the  name  by  which  they  were  known  to  the  Five 
Nations.    The  tribe  is  classed  as  Algonquian.    Brinton 


The  Red  Neighbours.  115 

would  explain  the  derivation  from  the  verb  "pashk," 
meaning  in  one  Algonquian  language  "to  divide,"  from 
the  old  seat  being  on  the  Pascatoway,  or  Piscataway, 
Creek,  where  an  estuary  of  the  Potomac  may  be  said  to 
divide  into  that  creek  and  Timber  Creek.  In  the  rapid 
fluctuations  of  power  among  savages,  these,  whatever 
their  kinship,  their  locations,  or  their  name,  seem  once 
to  have  been  a  great  nation.  The  Maryland  Archives 
furnish  us  with  the  statement  of  the  Pascatoway 
speaker  in  1660  that  the  fourteenth  or  earlier  King, 
or  Tayac,  before  the  one  then  reigning,  had  come  from 
the  Eastern  Shore,  and  commanded  all  the  Maryland 
Indians  and  also  the  Patowmacks  and  Susquehannocks. 
A  Virginia  record,  telling  of  an  expedition  in  the  latter 
part  of  1623  against  the  Pascoticans  and  their  associ- 
ates, recognizes  them  as  "the  greatest  people  in  these 
parts."  The  expedition  revenged  a  murder  by  the 
Anacostans.  The  first  settlers  of  Maryland  found 
apparently  in  control  of  the  Patowmacks,  and  very 
much  what  the  leader  of  the  Massowomekes  of  Smith's 
time  might  have  been,  an  Emperor,  or  Tayac,  of  Pascat- 
oway, who  could  summon  500  men  with  bows,  and 
whose  successor  had  a  dominion  of  one  hundred 
and  thirty  miles,  with  inferior  chieftains  under  him. 
This  people,  Lord  Baltimore  took  under  his  suzer- 
ainty, confirming  the  succession  of  subsequent  Tay- 
acs.  He  made  peace  between  the  Pascatoways  and 
the  Susquehannocks.  Between  1660  and  1667,  the 
former  seem  to  have  included  the  Anacostanck,  Doags, 
Mikelwoman,  Manasquasend,  Mattawoman,  Chingawa- 
waterck,  Nangemaick  or  Hangemaick,  Portoback,  Se- 
cayo,  Panyayo,  and  Choptico  Indians.  The  Pascato- 
ways, although  reduced  in  number,  and  the  Matta- 
women  turned  to  Maryland  in  her  struggle  with  the 
Susquehannocks  in  1675  or  1676,  and,  after  suffering 
at  the  hands  of  the  latter  and  the  Senecas,  the  Pasca- 


116  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

toways  were  embraced  in  the  peace  made  by  Maryland 
with  the  Five  Nations  in  1682. 

Apparently  the  Pascatoways  immediately  thereafter 
united  themselves  as  a  tributary  nation  to  the  great 
northern  confederacy.  When  the  English  Revolution 
took  place,  the  Protestants  in  Maryland  became  suspi- 
cious of  the  Indians,  who  had  been  friendly  with  the 
Lords  Baltimore.  Various  circumstances  alarmed  this 
tribe,  and  caused  the  seeking  of  refuge.  In  1697,  the 
Emperor  and  his  followers  were  found  between  the  two 
mountain  ranges  of  Virginia  beyond  the  head  of  the 
Occaquan  River.  Although  the  Maryland  government 
tried  to  induce  them  to  return  to  that  province,  they, 
after  coming  back  to  the  Potomac  River,  went  far 
enough  north  to  feel  themselves  within  the  boundaries 
of  the  Quaker  jurisdiction,  and  preferred  to  trust  them- 
selves as  guests  or  tributaries  of  their  old  enemies,  the 
Seneca-Susquehannocks.  Old  Sack,  chief  of  Conoy 
Town,  is  rejDorted  to  have  said  in  1743  that  his  fore- 
fathers came  from  Piscatua  to  an  island  in  Potowmack, 
and  from  there  down  to  Philadelphia  in  William  Penn's 
time,  and  that,  after  their  return  from  visiting  Penn 
at  Philadelphia,  they  brought  all  their  brothers  from 
Potomac  to  Conejoholo, — the  land  on  both  sides  of  the 
Susquehanna  for  a  number  of  miles  was  so  called, — and 
built  a  town  on  the  eastern  side,  and  afterwards  moved 
higher  up  to  Conoy  Town,  the  Six  Nations — evidently 
the  Seneca s  of  the  Conestoga  region — saying  that  there 
was  land  enough,  and  giving  permission  to  settle  any- 
where about  the  Susquehanna. 

It  is  possible  that  the  variations  or  derivatives  of 
the  Algonquian  word  for  south  or  southern  appearing 
quite  early  as  the  name  of  a  tribe,  like  Chawons  on 
Capt.  John  Smith's  map,  and  Chowanoke  in  his 
Description  of  Virginia,  may  not  designate  the  same 
nation  which  after  1688  was  always  meant  by  such 
attempts  to  represent  the  sound  as  Savino,  Sabber- 


7 


The  Red  Neighbours.  117 

nowle,  Shevinor,  Shawan,  Shawanees,  and  finally 
Shawnees  in  English,  and  as  Chuans  and  Chauonons 
in  French.  In  Visscher's  Dutch  map  before  1660,  we 
find  Sauwanoos  on  both  sides  of  the  Delaware  at  some 
indefinite  distance  above  the  Falls,  agreeing  with  the 
tradition  of  the  Shawnees  coming  to  Pennsylvania 
before  the  time  of  this  history,  and  of  their  occupying 
Shackamaxon,  as  mentioned  in  Rev.  John  Hecke- 
welder's  Account  of  the  History,  Manners,  and  Customs 
of  the  Indian  Nations  who  once  inhabited  Pennsylvania 
and  the  Neighbouring  States.  The  Shawnees  who 
entered  Pennsylvania  in  the  period  of  these  Chronicles 
came  from  the  south  or  southwest,  the  tradition  being 
that  the  nation  was  a  branch  of  the  Lenni  Lenape  which 
had  very  early  split  off,  and  gone  thither.  About  1688, 
there  were  Shawnee  villiages  on  the  Ohio  and  in  Caro- 
lina and  one  near  La  Salle's  Fort  St.  Louis,  as  well  as 
probably  some  still  on  the  Cumberland  River,  called  by 
the  French  geographer  m  1718  "Riviere  des  anciens 
Chaouanons,"  while  he  called  the  Savannah  "Riviere 
des  Chaouanons  ou  d'Edisto."  The  proximity  to  the 
French  of  the  old  homes  of  the  Shawnees  and  the  alli- 
ance of  various  bodies  of  them  with  the  French  made 
all  members  of  the  tribe  within  the  English  possessions 
objects  of  suspicion. 

A  statement  in  Volume  8  of  the  Maryland  Archives, 
pp.  517  and  518,  may  mean  that  a  party  of  Shawnees, 
fleeing  from  the  Twightwees,  passed  up  the  Susque- 
hanna about  1687,  and  joined  the  Iroquois.  The  "Sat- 
tanas"  having  been  at  war  with  the  Five  Nations,  one 
hundred  warriors  of  the  former  went  on  a  deputation 
to  the  latter  to  make  peace,  and  had  reached  the  Dela- 
ware River — Hanna  says,  probably  near  the  Falls — by 
August,  1692.  Hanna,  in  the  book  which  has  been  men- 
tioned, shows  how  communication  with  the  Province  of 
New  York  and  settlement  in  New  Jersey  followed.  It 
is  probable  that  the  fear  of  the  strange  Indians  called 


118  Chkonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Shallna-roonas  felt  by  the  Schuylkill  Indians  in  1693 
was  owing  to  the  movement  of  larger  bodies  than  the 
group    which    settled    on    the    Susquehanna.      Those 
Shawnees  who  came  to  the  western  side  of  the  Delaware 
near  the  Water  Gap  about  the  time  of,  but  indepen- 
dently of,  the  Shawnee  immigration  to  the  Susque- 
hanna, had  lived  in  New  Jersey.  Whether  or  not  Martin 
Chartier,  as  Eshleman  supposes,  had  been  a  trader  on 
the  Susquehanna  before  1692,  it  is  clear  that  Chartier, 
who  had  fled  years  before  from  Canada,  and  more  re- 
cently from  Fort   St.  Louis,  brought  a  band  from  the 
Shawnee  village  near  Fort  St.  Louis  to  the  Chesapeake 
in  1692;  in  which  year  the  Susquehanna  Indians  and 
some  southern  Indians,  called,  according  to  the  record, 
"Stabbernowles,"  claiming  to  be  in  league  with  the 
Mohawks,  who  were  friends  of  Maryland,  asked  per- 
mission of  the  government  of  that  province  for  the 
Stabbernowles  to  settle  on  the  lands  of  the  Susque- 
hannas,  but  were  informed  that  the  lands  were  within 
the  limits  of  Pennsylvania,  but  that  Maryland,  however, 
would  not  disturb  the  Stabbernowles  as  long  as  they 
lived  peaceably.  They  continued  there,  a  Maryland  officer 
in  June,  1697,  finding  thirty  "Shevanor"  men,  besides 
women  and  children,  living  "four  miles  below  Cones- 
toga,"  paying  tribute  to  the  Susquehannas  and  Senecas, 
and  the  Maryland  Archives  in  1696  and  1698  speaking 
of  that  Province  being  at  peace  with  the  Shawnees. 
In  later  generations,  the  officials  of  Pennsylvania  had 
no  knowledge  of  any  immigration  of  Shawnees  prior 
to  1697  or  1698,  and  did  not  distinguish  those  who  came 
at  other  times  or  to  other  places  from  those  now  about 
to  be  mentioned.    Lieutenant-Governor  Gordon,  in  a  let- 
ter endorsed  as  having  been  written  in  December,  1731 
(Penna.  Archives,  1st  Series,  Vol.  I,  p.  302),  said  that 
he  had  found  by  the  records  that,  about  thirty-four 
years  previously,  numbers  of  Shawnees  had  come  to 
Susquehanna,  and  obtained  leave  first  of  the  Cones- 


The  Red  Neighbours.  119 

togas,  and  afterwards  of  Lieutenant-Governor  Mark- 
ham,  to  settle  on  Pecquea  (Peqnea)  Creek.  As  it  was 
said  by  another  authority  that  sixty  families  came  in 
1698  to  Conestoga,  it  is  probable  that  a  sufficient  re- 
inforcement came  in  that  year  to  raise  the  Shawnees 
in  what  is  now  Lancaster  County  to  such  number,  and 
perhaps  the  reinforcements  came  more  directly  from 
the  Cherokee  country.  Defeats  by  the  Cherokees  and 
Catawbas  had  stopped  the  spread  of  the  nation  further 
south.  The  coming  to  Pennsylvania  has  been  reported 
as  a  fleeing  before  one  of  these  enemies. 

The  Shawnees  about  the  lower  Susquehanna  and  the 
Conestoga  Indians,  or  Seneca-Susquehannas,  being  on 
the  frontier,  were  molested  both  at  their  homes  and  in 
the  hunting  grounds  by  the  Naked  Indians  (Miamis, 
or  Twightwees).  In  the  Fall  of  1699,  some  runaway 
servants,  including  a  woman  nearly  related  to  a  Twight- 
wee  King,  were  harbored  by  Conodahto,  or  Conno- 
dagtoh,  King  of  the  Conestogas,  and  Mecallona,  King 
of  these  Shawnees.  Mecallona  conceived  the  project 
of  redeeming  the  woman  from  service,  and  sending  her 
to  the  Twightwees,  as  an  act  of  kindness  which  must 
result  in  peace.  This  was  frustrated  by  certain  white 
men  reclaiming  the  servants.  The  threats  of  bringing 
a  large  force,  and  cutting  off  all  the  Indians  under 
Mecallona  and  Connodagtoh,  not  only  brought  about  the 
surrender  of  the  runaways,  but  put  the  two  tribes  into 
such  trepidation  that  they  did  not  plant  corn  the  next 
Spring,  and  they  prepared  to  move.  The  petition  of 
the  two  Kings  to  Penn  for  favor  and  protection  is  dated 
May  1,  1700,  at  Brandywine,  where  they  got  a  white 
man  to  write  it,  and  is  printed  in  Vol.  I  of  The  Penn 
and  Logan  Correspondence,  page  1.  The  heading  is 
correct,  but  in  the  body  of  the  petition  the  name  Savino, 
i.e.  Shawnee,  is  misprinted  as  "Gavino."  Mecallona 
may  not  have  been  the  only  king  of  these  tribesmen; 
for  on  Aug.  29,  Ophesaw  (Opessa),  or,  as  he  is  called 


120  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

in  Penn's  treaty  the  next  year,  Wopaththa,  as  King 
of  these  Shawnees,  joined  the  Delaware  King  and  the 
representative  of  the  Susquehanna  Indians  in  a  treaty 
of  peace  and  alliance  with  Maryland. 

The  Proprietary  of  Pennsylvania  was  put  in  the 
position  of  protector,  guide,  suzerain,  and,  moreover, 
monopolizer  of  the  trade  of  the  Indians  within  two  hun- 
dred miles  westward  of  the  white  settlements  by  a 
treaty  of  April  23, 1701,  between  William  Penn  for  him- 
self and  his  heirs  and  successors,  and  the  following 
Indians  for  themselves  and  their  successors  and  na- 
tions and  people,  viz:  Connodagtoh,  described  in  the 
Council  Minutes  as  "King  of  the  Sasquehannah  Min- 
quays  or  Conestoga  Indians, ' '  but  in  the  articles  called 
"King  of  the  Indians  inhabiting  upon  and  about  the 
river  Susquehannah  in  the  said  Province,"  and  Wi- 
daagh,  alias  Orettyagh,  Koqueeash,  and  Andaggy  Junk- 
quagh,  chiefs  of  the  said  nations,  Wopaththa,  King, 
and  Lemoycungh  and  Pemoyajooagh,  chiefs,  of  the 
Shawnees,  and  Ahookassoongh,  brother  of  the  Em- 
peror, in  behalf  of  the  Emperor,  i.e.  the  great  King  of 
the  Onondagas,  and  Weewhinjongh,  Cheequittagh,  Tak- 
yewsan,  and  Woapackoa,  chiefs  of  the  Ganawese, 
called  in  the  articles  "the  nations  of  the  Indians  in- 
habiting in  and  about  the  northern  part  of  the  River 
Powtowmeck. ' '  There  was  to  continue  a  firm  peace 
between  the  Christian  inhabitants  of  the  province  and 
the  several  peoples  aforesaid,  and  no  injury  should  be 
done  to  any  one  on  either  side;  the  Indians  were  to 
behave  according  to  the  laws  of  the  government  while 
they  lived  near  the  white  people,  and  were  to  have  the 
privileges  and  immunities  of  the  laws,  they  acknowledg- 
ing the  authority  of  the  Crown  and  the  Provincial 
Government ;  they  were  not  to  aid,  assist,  or  abet  any 
one  not  in  amity  with  said  Crown  and  Government; 
both  sides  were  to  notify  of  all  rumors  of  each  others' 
evil  designs ;  the  kings  and  chiefs  and  their  successors 


The  Red  Neighbours.  121 

were  not  to  allow  any  strange  Indian  nations  to  settle 
on  the  western  side  of  the  Susquehanna  or  about  the 
Potomac  other  than  those  already  seated,  or  bring  other 
Indians  into  the  province  without  the  consent  of  the 
Proprietary;  no  person  was  to  trade  with  the  Indians 
without  a  license  under  the  hand  and  seal  of  the  Pro- 
prietary or  his  Lieutenants ;  and  Penn,  his  heirs  and  suc- 
cessors were  to  take  care  to  have  the  Indians  ' '  furnished 
with  all  sorts  of  necessary  goods  for  their  use  at  rea- 
sonable rates;"  the  Potomac  Indians  aforesaid  were 
allowed  to  settle  upon  any  part  of  the  Potomac  River 
within  the  bounds  of  the  province ;  the  Indians  of  Cones- 
toga  and  upon  and  about  the  Susquehanna  River,  and 
especially  their  said  King,  Connodagtoh,  should  be  at 
all  times  ready  to  confirm  and  make  good  the  sale  to 
Penn,  now  ratified,  of  the  lands  lying  near  and  about 
the  said  River;  and  the  Indians  of  the  Susquehanna 
were  to  answer  for  the  behavior  and  conduct  of  the  said 
Indians,  and  for  their  performance  of  the  articles; 
Penn  and  his  heirs  and  successors  were  to  assist  with 
advice  and  directions — notice,  not  with  arms — and,  in 
all  things  reasonable,  befriend  all  said  Indians  behav- 
ing as  aforesaid,  and  submitting  to  the  laws  of  the  Prov- 
ince. 

The  Shawnees  of  Pechoquealon  in  the  region  known 
as  Lechay  (Lehigh),  were  not  strictly  a  party  to  the 
treaty  of  April  23,  1701,  but  made  some  overtures  for 
trade  shortly  afterwards,  and  seem  to  have  been  thence- 
forth considered  as  embraced  within  the  Proprietaries ' 
guardianship,  just  as,  when  all  Pennsylvania  Shawnees 
came  to  be  within  easier  reach  of  one  another,  the 
Five  Nations  appointed  one  viceroy  or  superintendent 
over  them  all. 

In  accordance  with  Penn's  suggestion,  the  Governor 
of  New  York,  making,  in  1701,  a  treaty  with  the  Five 
Nations,  made  their  promises  of  peace  extend  to  all  the 


122  Chbonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

other  English  Colonies  as  well  as  New  York,  and  to  the 
Indian  tribes  within  the  respective  provinces. 

The  Nanticokes,  who  appear  in  the  records  of  Penn- 
sylvania a  few  years  later,  were  at  this  time  in  Mary- 
land. They  are  called  in  subsequent  New  York  records 
Tochwoghs,  the  name  by  which  they  are  mentioned  in 
Smith's  Description  of  Virginia.  The  Wolam  Olum  of 
the  Delawares  speaks  of  the  Nentegoes  as  well  as  the 
Shawanis  separating  from  the  rest  of  the  nation  in 
early  times,  and  going  south.  The  Maryland  Archives 
mention  various  "Emperors"  of  the  Nanticokes.  The 
Nanticokes  who  met  Evans  in  1707  understood  English 
so  well  that  no  interpreter  was  employed.  They  gave 
the  date  of  their  peace  with  the  Five  Nations  as  twenty- 
seven  years  before,  although  the  Maryland  records 
speak  of  a  war  between  them  in  1681. 

Among  the  tribes  mentioned  by  John  Smith  were  the 
Kuskarawaoks  about  half  way  down  the  eastern  shore 
of  the  Chesapeake.  They  have  not  been  supposed  to 
be  the  same  as  the  Iroquois  bearing  the  almost  identical 
name  of  Tuscaroras ;  but  if  they  were  the  same,  could 
they  not  have  been  the  Black  Minquas?  The  Tusca- 
roras, about  1701,  reached  in  the  Carolinas  the  south- 
ernmost point  of  their  wanderings,  and  will  be  men- 
tioned later.    They  had  been  enemies  of  the  Shawnees. 

The  courtesies  required  at  the  Colony's  hands  by 
the  Indian  tribes,  mostly  the  interchange  of  visits  in 
which  the  Province  gave  more  valuable  presents  than 
it  received,  and  the  maintenance  of  the  visiting  Indian 
families,  were  a  small  price  to  pay  for  peace.  The 
Proprietaries  paying  the  expense  of  those  meetings 
which  were  for  the  purchase  of  land,  the  public  outlay, 
until  the  treaty  in  1722  at  Albany,  was  for  many  years 
less  than  50?.  authorized  in  1705  to  be  annually  ex- 
pended for  treaties  and  messages. 


CHAPTER   V. 

The  People. 

The  small  number  of  Swedes  and  Dutch — The 
Church  of  Sweden  and  its  Ministers  on  the  Dela- 
ware and  Schuylkill — Decline  of  Swedish  families 
in  prominence — Welsh  Tract — German  Town — 
French  settlement  in  Chester  County — Pennsyl- 
vania practically  a  colony  of  Englishmen — Prepon- 
derance of  Quakers — Early  Meetings  for  Business 
— Philadelphia's  oldest  meeting-houses — Quaker 
Ideas — Jews-harps — Benjamin  West — Baptists — 
Advantages  of  the  Society  of  Friends  and  political 
importance  of  its  leaders — Previous  social  rank  of 
the  settlers — Education  among  them — Penn's  rela- 
tives and  his  father's  companions  in  arms — Mark- 
ham  and  his  family — Baron  Isaac  Baner,  Lady 
Newcomen,  and  James  Annesley — Little  recogni- 
tion of  Caste — No  landed  oligarchy — Sale  of  real 
estate  to  pay  debts — Distribution  of  inheritance — 
Attractiveness  of  Penn's  dominions  as  a  place  of 
residence. 

A  few  surnames  and  a  few  churches,  now  Protestant 
Episcopal,  are  nearly  all  the  vestiges  in  Pennsylvania 
or  Delaware  of  the  colonization  promoted  by  the  House 
of  Vasa,  and  the  name  of  the  Schuylkill  River  is  prac- 
tically the  only  thing  that  has  survived  among  us  from 
the  time  of  the  authority  of  their  High  Mightinesses, 
the  Estates  General  of  Federate  Belgium,  or  the  United 
Netherlands.  Moreover,  there  lurks  in  our  local  speech, 
as  far  as  the  author  can  recall,  not  a  word,  unless 
brought  into  it  much  more  recently,  of  the  language  of 
the  subjects  of  either  of  those  two  powers.    The  use 


124  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

of  English  for  colloquial  purposes  became  a  necessity 
as  soon  as  the  immigration  of  Englishmen  became 
considerable,  although  Swedish  survived  in  sermons 
and  church  services  for  a  good  many  years,  and,  in  fact, 
Dutch  was  reintroduced  for  such  uses  among  those 
whose  grandfathers  had  spoken  it.  From  the  retire- 
ment of  Dutch  officials  after  the  final  surrender  to 
England,  until  New  Yorkers,  in  the  days  of  Penn,  be- 
gan to  come  to  Bucks  County,  there  was  scarcely  a 
Dutch  family  in  the  region  now  called  Pennsylvania, 
and  so  small  a  proportion  were  the  Swedes  and  Dutch 
of  its  population  during  the  period  of  these  Chronicles 
that  we  might  disregard  those  races,  had  they  not  been 
strong  in  the  region  now  called  Delaware,  and  there- 
fore of  weight  in  the  politics  of  Penn's  dominion. 
Although  there  was  some  influx  of  Englishmen  both 
before  and  after  the  Duke  of  York's  deed  to  William 
Penn,  the  greater  part  of  the  population  of  New  Castle, 
Kent,  and  Sussex  Counties  was  of  other  nationality 
than  English  at  the  Revolution  of  1688,  particularly 
if  Scotland  was  to  be  reckoned  a  separate  nation. 
There  were  even  quite  a  number  of  Frenchmen. 

Of  the  three  races,  Swedes,  Finns,  and  Dutch,  the 
Swedes  were  greatly  in  the  majority  on  Delaware  Bay 
and  River. 

The  Swedish  settlers  and  their  children  were  not 
dissenters  from  their  National  Church,  which,  although 
classified  as  Lutheran,  was,  like  the  Church  of  England, 
liturgical,  presided  over  by  bishops,  and  controlled  by 
the  State ;  nor  had  the  Dutch  any  of  those  peculiarities 
which  separated  some  Anabaptists  and  the  Quakers 
from  other  Protestants.  When  language  was  not  a 
barrier,  aliens  who  recognized  the  Bible  as  their  Di- 
rectory in  faith  and  morals,  not  placing  greater  con- 
fidence in  the  individual  conscience,  whose  ministers 
were  trained,  who  took  an  oath  when  the  magistrate 
required  it,  whose  leading  men  wore  swords,  and  of 


The  People.  125 

whom  the  poorer  men  were  ready  to  use  pikes  and  guns, 
were  more  congenial  to  the  ordinary  Englishman  than 
his  Quaker  compatriots.  There  will  be  mentioned  the 
likelihood  of  such  an  Englishman,  at  least  before  1696, 
attending  the  houses  of  worship  established  by  the 
Swedes,  and  partly  maintained  by  the  Dutch,  where  at 
times  there  ministered  an  Anglican  clergyman. 

In  the  year  with  which  this  history  begins,  the 
Swedes  were  assembling  for  worship  at  Tranhook  on 
Christiana  Creek  in  New  Castle  County  (church  now 
known  as  Holy  Trinity,  Wilmington),  and  on  Tinicum 
Island  (church  soon  afterwards  abandoned),  and  at 
Weccacoe,  for  which  the  congregation  afterwards  built 
the  edifice  now  standing,  dedicated  July  2,  1700,  known 
as  Gloria  Dei  Church  (on  Delaware  Avenue  above 
Washington  Avenue  in  Philadelphia).  Rev.  Jacob 
Fabritius,  living  above  Penn's  capital  town,  and  com- 
ing down  the  river  in  a  canoe,  tended  all  the  congrega- 
tions, and  even  went  into  Maryland.  He  had  been 
blind  since  1682,  and  was  led  about  by  some  one  who 
preceded  him  with  a  staff.  Acrelius  says  that  this 
dominie,  by  birth  a  German  or  a  Pole,  and  called  from 
New  York  by  the  non-English  whites  on  the  Delaware, 
preached  mostly  in  Dutch.  It  may  be  supposed  that 
he  was  never  one  of  the  clergy  of  the  country  of 
Sweden,  although  his  Lutheranism  was  undoubted. 
When  he  was  not  present  at  Tinicum,  Andreas  Bengt- 
son  (Andrew  Bankson)  read  Moller's  Postilla. 

King  Charles  XI  of  Sweden,  not  in  the  exercise  of 
any  superintendence  over  English  subjects  of  Swedish 
descent,  but  out  of  zeal  for  the  Evangelical  religion, 
upon  hearing  of  the  need  of  ministers  and  books,  sent 
over  the  Rev.  Andreas  Rudman,  Rev.  Eric  Tobias 
Biorck,  and  Rev.  Jonas  Auren,  who  all  arrived  in  June, 
1697,  when  Rudman  took  the  churches  in  Pennsylvania 
proper.  He  was  invested  with  a  commissaryship  or 
vice-episcopal  dignity,  whereby,  after  he  had  given  up 


126  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

his  charge  in  Philadelphia,  he  presided  at  the  ordina- 
tion there  by  himself,  Biorck,  and  Sandel  of  Justus 
Falckner  on  Nov.  24,  1703  (Sachse's  German  Pietists), 
Rudman  had,  on  July  19,  1702,  preached  his  farewell 
sermon  in  Weccacoe  Church,  in  accordance  with  leave 
to  return  home;  but,  after  laboring  among  Lutherans 
on  the  Hudson,  he  for  some  time  served  Anglican 
churches  in  Penn's  dominions,  and  he  died  in  Phila- 
delphia. He  had  been  succeeded  in  his  Swedish  charge 
by  the  Rev.  Andreas  Sandel,  picked  out  by  the  Con- 
sistory of  Upsala,  and  ordained  by  Archbishop  Ben- 
zelius  of  that  see.  In  Sandel 's  time  there  were  enough 
Swedes  and  other  Lutherans  at  Pennypack  and  Amas- 
land  and  Kalcon  Hook,  as  well  as  at  Manatawny,  as 
about  to  be  mentioned,  for  him  occasionally  to  preach 
at  those  places.  When,  in  1719,  Sandel  returned  to 
Sweden,  the  Rev.  Jonas  Lidman  took  charge  of  Wecca- 
coe and  Kalcon  Hook;  and  the  Rev.  Samuel  Hesselius, 
of  Neshaminy  and  Manatawny.  Lidman,  upon  being 
recalled,  left  his  congregation  in  1730  to  the  care,  says 
Acrelius,  of  Mr.  John  Eneberg,  who  was  then  preach- 
ing for  the  Germans.  Rev.  Gabriel  Falk,  who  came  in 
1733,  was  obliged  to  leave  Weccacoe  by  being  found 
guilty  of  slander,  and  sentenced  to  heavy  damages ;  but, 
retiring  to  Manatawny  (of  which  name  Molatton  ap- 
pears to  be  a  variation),  he  for  a  number  of  years 
served  what  has  since  been  called  St.  Gabriel's,  Mo- 
latton (now  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  at  Doug- 
lassville).  Rev.  Johan  Dylander  came  to  Weccacoe  in 
1737,  and  served  until  his  death  in  1741.  During  the 
visits  of  Whitefield  and  Zinzendorf,  the  Church  of 
Sweden  in  Pennsylvania  was  badly  broken  up.  After 
the  arrival  of  Muhlenberg — see  a  later  chapter — there 
was  an  attempt  to  unite  the  Swedes  and  the  German 
Lutherans  ecclesiastically;  but  the  Rev.  Gabriel  Naes- 
man,  who  had  been  sent  from  Sweden  as  Dylander 's 
successor,  refused  to  join,  as  being  subject  to  the  Arch- 


The  People.  127 

bishop  and  Consistory  of  Upsala.  Naesman  was  shep- 
herd of  the  diminished  flock  in  the  year  when  this 
history  ends.  Under  his  successors,  the  Swedish  church 
edifices  and  congregations  of  Pennsylvania  became 
three  in  number  only:  Gloria  Dei  at  Weccacoe,  and 
what  is  now  St.  James's  at  Kingsessing,  and  Christ 
Church  in  Upper  Merion  (Bridgeport).  In  Delaware, 
there  was  Holy  Trinity  Church.  An  ecclesiastic  called 
"Provost,"  sometimes  the  minister  at  Holy  Trinity 
being  appointed  such,  presided  over  all  the  Swedish 
missionaries  on  the  Delaware,  and  one  of  the  arch- 
bishops or  bishops  in  Sweden  had  the  general  care  of 
the  mission.  Pastors  were  sent  from  Sweden  until 
after  the  American  Revolution.  When  subsequent  va- 
cancies occurred,  the  congregations  began  calling 
clergymen  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church  of  the 
United  States  of  America. 

When  the  early  purchasers  from  Penn  arrived  in 
Pennsylvania,  they  found  the  choicest  land  in  the  pos- 
session of  those  who  had  come  under  other  authority, 
mostly  Swedes.  Penn,  at  his  second  visit,  offered  to 
such  Swedes  in  exchange  lands  at  Manatawny  (partly 
in  Montgomery  and  partly  in  Berks  County  on  the 
Schuylkill),  at  a  quit  rent  of  a  bushel  of  wheat  per 
100  A.  He  set  apart  10,000  acres  thus  to  be  a  Swedes 
Tract,  somewhat  like  the  tracts  to  be  mentioned  for 
persons  of  other  nationalities  respectively.  Although 
Acrelius  says  that  only  a  few  accepted  the  offer,  Swedes 
were  afterwards  reputed  owners  of  that  number  of 
acres  in  the  aggregate  there.  Swedes  also  bought  con- 
siderable land  from  Welshmen  owning  the  same  on  the 
western  side  of  the  Schuylkill  around  about  the  present 
town  of  Bridgeport,  Montgomery  Co. 

In  addition  to  Swedish  ideas  of  public  policy,  there 
were,  as  have  been  mentioned  in  a  preceding  chapter, 
some  Swedish  grievances  real  or  supposed;  so  there 
may  be  said  to  have  been  at  a  certain  time  a  Swedish 


128  Chkonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Party,  as  well  as  several  Swedish  neighbourhoods.  The 
sympathy,  before  alluded  to,  between  the  non-Quaker 
English  and  the  persons  of  other  nationality,  made,  in- 
dependently of  any  personal  interests,  the  prevailing 
sentiment  in  the  Lower  Counties  strongly  opposed  to 
that  in  the  Upper,  or  Pennsylvania  proper. 

While  certain  ideas  were  derived  from  the  Swedes 
and  Dutch,  and  they  controlled  politics  in  some  locali- 
ties, they,  even  in  Delaware,  were  not  the  leading  ex- 
ponents of  their  views,  and  their  importance  did  not 
outlast  their  relative  numerical  strength.  It  marked 
contrast  with  certain  Dutch  families  in  New  York,  the 
progenitors  of  some  of  which,  to  be  sure,  received  enor- 
mous territory,  and  resembled  Penn  as  landlord,  but 
not  as  Governor,  it  is  noticeable  that  the  pioneers  on 
the  western  banks  of  our  river  and  bay  secured  no 
financial,  social,  or  political  advantages  over  those  who 
came  later.  The  commanders  of  the  colony  not  vice- 
gerents under  an  officer  at  Manhattan  left  no  sons ;  yet 
there  were  chief  men  who  joined  Penn  in  inaugurating 
his  government  who  left  families;  but  their  children 
succeeded  to  no  political  importance  in  the  Upper  Coun- 
ties, and,  in  fact,  their  grandchildren,  to  very  little  in 
the  Lower ;  for  Delaware  in  good  time  became  English, 
although  not  strongly  Quaker.  As  a  class,  collection 
of  families,  or  group,  the  Swedes  and  Dutch  are  oblit- 
erated from  the  history  of  Pennsylvania  after  Penn's 
second  visit.  The  non-Quakers  of  different  nationali- 
ties intermarried,  and  many  of  the  most  influential 
persons  of  later  Colonial  times  had,  through  some 
female  line,  a  strain  of  Swedish  blood:  but  John  Mor- 
ton, signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  was  the 
only  person  of  Swedish  patronymic  known  outside  of 
a  county  court  or  the  House  of  Assembly,  until,  in  more 
modern  times,  a  number  of  individuals  have  by  their 
abilities  recalled  to  us  this  old  race  to  which  they  in 
the  male  line  belong. 


The  People.  129 

William  Perm,  besides  his  sales  to  the  early  English 
purchasers,  made  some  effort  to  secure  the  taking  up 
of  tracts  by  persons  outside  of,  even  across  the  seas 
from,  England,  and  in  some  cases  indulged  those  of  a 
particular  nationality  by  putting  their  acres  together 
in  rather  large  districts  apart  from  other  people's. 
The  earliest  instance  of  this  was  for  a  race  almost  with- 
out a  taint  of  Anglo-Saxon  blood,  speaking  a  language 
very  different  from  English,  but  in  closer  political 
union  than  the  Scotch  or  the  Irish  with  the  Crown  and 
Parliament  of  England.    Before  coming  over  to  Penn- 
sylvania, Penn,  according  to  a  memorial  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  Welch  Tract  (Pennsylvania  Archives,  Vol. 
I,  p.  108),  stipulated  with  his  purchasers  from  Wales 
and,  as  it  elsewhere  appears,  certain  purchasers,  prob- 
ably Welshmen,  from  Herefordshire,  Shropshire,  and 
Cheshire  that  they  should  have  their  lands  lying  to- 
gether, and  that  within  the  bounds  of  the  district  thus 
formed,  all  causes,  quarrels,  crimes,  and  titles  should 
be  determined  by  men  of  their  own  language.     On 
arriving,  he  issued  a  warrant  for  40,000  acres,  and 
accordingly  what  was  supposed  to  be  that  quantity  was 
set  apart  as  the  "Welch  Tract,"  taking  in  the  present 
townships  of  Haverford,  Radnor,  Lower  Merion,  &ct., 
where  geographical  names  from  the  British  principality 
are  found  to-day.    About  eighty  settlements  had  been 
made  by  the  latter  part  of  1690,  when  the  Commis- 
sioners of  Property  summoned  one  of  the  purchasers 
to  show  cause  why  the  part  not  portioned  off  or  settled 
and  improved  should  not  be  treated  as  forfeited,  and 
be  disposed  of  as  other  unallotted  land  in  the  province. 
The  Commissioners  wished  each  purchaser  who  had  not 
taken  out  a  patent  under  the  usual  quit  rent,  to  do  so, 
and  required  a  speedy  compliance,  declaring  the  me- 
morial presented  by  Griffith  Owen  and  others  in  answer 
insufficient.    The  Welsh  on  3rd  mo.  2, 1691,  stated  their 
willingness  to  pay  the  future  quit  rent,  but  not  the  past, 

9 


130  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

on  the  whole  40,000  acres,  but  this  was  declared  not 
satisfactory.  Thomas  Allen  Glenn,  in  "Merion  in  the 
Welsh  Tract,"  says  that  soon  afterwards  the  Welsh 
agreed  to  pay  the  entire  back  rent  of  the  whole  tract, 
but  the  minutes  of  the  Commissioners  for  4,  27,  1691, 
speak  of  the  repeating  of  the  old  offer.  The  Commis- 
sioners answered  that  it  was  too  late  to  change  the 
decision,  and  that  the  matter  had  been  settled.  Thus 
considerable  land  within  the  tract  was  confirmed  to 
persons  not  Welsh.  The  racial  isolation  of  the  chief 
immigrants  representing  the  ancient  Britons  was  some- 
what bridged  over  by  their  being  of  a  social  class  hav- 
ing genealogical  charts  showing  a  line  of  descent  from 
the  Norman  barons  or  kings,  and  thus  in  touch  with  the 
history  of  England,  and,  as  to  most  of  the  individuals, 
taught  the  medium  of  communication  with  the  people 
beyond  the  twelve  shires  of  Wales.  The  tenants  or 
servants  of  these  freeholders  and  the  free  countrymen 
who  followed  them  made  the  Welsh  settlers  quite  nu- 
merous by  1700. 

There  was  another  Welsh  Tract  in  Penn's  dominions, 
viz:  30,000  acres,  mostly  within  the  present  limits  of 
Delaware,  bought  by  Welsh  Baptists  in  1703,  but  this 
settlement  was  not  accorded  any  independence  of  the 
county  authority. 

A  more  successful  project  of  putting  a  foreign  dis- 
trict in  the  Province  was  connected  with  the  early  ar- 
rival of  some  German-speaking  persons  from  Crefeld  or 
from  within  the  borders  of  the  Netherlands.  The  place 
for  their  residence  was  called  Germantown  (now  within 
the  City  of  Philadelphia),  and  the  Bailiffs,  Burgesses, 
and  Commonalty  of  German  Towne  were  incorporated 
by  patent  from  Penn  dated  Aug.  12,  1689,  and  issued 
under  the  great  seal  of  the  Province  on  3,  30,  1691,  with 
power  to  hold  market,  impose  fines,  &ct.,  but  the  origi- 
nal settlers  and  those  who  soon  joined  them,  although 
long  intermarrying  among  themselves,  were  connected 


The  People.  131 

in  trade,  and  sympathetic  in  religion,  with  the  people 
surrounding  the  little  township,  and  became  English  in 
everything  but  pedigree  and,  perhaps,  some  peculiari- 
ties of  disposition. 

Penn  early  hoped  that  the  French  Protestants  in 
England  and  elsewhere  would  join  in  the  colonization, 
and  to  the  poorer  ones  among  them,  he  was  looking 
more  particularly  for  renters,  who  might  become  pur- 
chasers, instead  of  purchasers  at  once  for  cash  down. 
It  is  said  that  Anthony  Duche  came  over  in  the  ship 
with  him.  Without  being  part  of  a  projected  French 
community  or  separate  group  of  settlers,  others  of  the 
race,  although  perhaps  not  of  the  religion,  followed. 
Among  them  was  Charles  De  la  Noe,  of  whom  Penn, 
calling  him" ' '  the  French  minister, ' '  speaks  in  1685  as 
intending  to  come  over  with  servants  as  a  vigneron, 
and  whose  will,  calling  hirn  "minister,"  is  dated  7mo. 
11,  1686,  and  was  probated  in  the  same  year,  giving  all 
his  real  and  personal  estate  in  the  Province  to  Jacob 
Pelkison  of  the  County  of  Philadelphia,  merchant,  who 
may  have  been  a  religious  exile.  Watson,  the  Annalist, 
was  inclined  to  identify  De  la  Noe  as  the  "old  priest 
in  Philadelphia"  mentioned  in  Penn's  letter  of  1686 
to  Harrison,  and  to  conclude  from  the  word  "priest," 
which  Penn  applied  as  well  to  the  Anglican  clergy,  that 
De  la  Noe  was  a  Roman  Catholic.  Andrew  Doz  was  at 
one  time  Penn's  vigneron. 

After  Penn's  return  to  England  from  his  first  visit 
to  America,  Sir  Mathias  Vincent,  Kt.,  of  Islington, 
Middlesex,  and  Dr.  Daniel  Coxe,  who  was  one  of  King 
Charles  II 's  physicians,  became  interested  in  establish- 
ing a  settlement  of  French  Protestants  in  Pennsylvania. 
These  two  speculators,  as  well  as  Major  Robert  Thomp- 
son of  Newington  Green,  Middlesex,  bought  10,000 
acres  each,  the  deeds  bearing  date  April  20,  1686.  All 
were  located  within  a  large  tract  which  on  Holme's  map 
is  appropriated  to  Vincent,  Coxe,  Adriaen  Vroesen, 


132  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

and  Benjamin  Furly,  but  in  which  Thompson's  pur- 
chase took  the  place  of  those  of  Vroesen  and  Furly. 
The  tract  lies  on  the  Schuylkill  within  the  present 
Chester  County,  and  is  crossed  by  French  Creek,  doubt- 
less so  called  in  memory  of  the  people  early  coming 
there,  and  includes  the  present  townships  of  Chester 
County  called  East  and  West  Vincent  in  memory  of 
Sir  Mathias.  Dr.  Coxe,  after  getting  some  French 
Protestants  and  perhaps  other  immigrants,  abandoned 
the  project  for  schemes  in  South  Carolina  and  New 
Jersey,  and  sold  out  in  1691  to  certain  persons  called 
the  West  Jersey  Society.  Vincent  executed  articles  of 
agreement  on  Sep.  13, 1686,  with  Capt.  Jacques  Le  Tort, 
and,  on  Sep.  18,  with  Gousee  Bonnin.  There  is  pre- 
served among  the  MSS.  of  the  Historical  Society  of 
Pennsylvania  the  certificate  in  French  from  Le  Sauv- 
age,  minister,  dated  at  London,  Jany.  1,  1686  (probably 
N.  S.),  that  le  Sieur  Jaques  Le  Tort,  native  of  France, 
aged  thirty-five  years,  reared  in  "our  Eeligion"  (Re- 
formed), was  some  time  member  of  the  flock  at  Alencon, 
and  at  the  date  was  desiring  employment  under  the 
Elector  of  Brandenburg.  Apparently  on  failing  to 
obtain  this  employment,  or  diverted  by  the  opportunity 
of  a  career  in  the  New  World,  he,  when  making  the 
agreement  with  Vincent,  was  bringing  over,  at  the  sug- 
gestion of  Coxe,  a  number  of  French  Protestants. 
Several  families  of  them  settled  on  Vincent's  land. 
Nicole  Godin,  a  native  of  London,  whose  father  had 
come  from  Paris,  was  brought  over  "with  a  French 
gentleman  who  came  hither  upon  the  account  of  Dr. 
Cox  (sic),"  probably  Le  Tort.  Possibly  Peter  and 
Richard  Bezel  Ion  (often  spelt  Bizalion)  were  brought 
over  at  the  same  time.  It  is  stated  that  the  emigrants 
led  to  the  region  by  Le  Tort  deserted,  but  that  he 
remained  until  1696.  On  a  voyage  to  England,  he  was 
captured  by  the  French,  but  he  came  back  to  the  Prov- 
ince.    The  sons  and  executors  of  Vincent  and  of  his 


The  People.  133 

wife  conveyed  on  Dec.  30,  1698,  the  10,000  acres  to 
Joseph  Pike,  subject  to  the  aforesaid  agreements  with 
Le  Tort  and  Bonnin,  and  to  10s.  quit  rent.  Le  Tort 
and  his  son  of  the  same  name,  as  well  as  Godin  and  the 
two  Bezellons,  figured  for  many  years  as  traders  with 
the  Indians.  Although  a  Protestant  and  a  native  of 
London  and  son  of  an  English  mother,  Capt.  James 
(Jacques)  Le  Tort  the  younger,  was  at  times  an  object 
of  suspicion  because  his  father  had  been  French. 

When  Penn  received  the  charter  for  Pennsylvania, 
the  scattered  residents  north  of  what  is  now  Delaware 
included  a  number  of  natives  of  the  British  Isles.  So 
great  was  the  stream  of  people  immigrating  under  him, 
and  in  it  so  largely  did  the  Anglo-Saxon  element  pre- 
dominate, that  by  1688  Pennsylvania  was  already  a 
colony  practically  of  Englishmen.  For  thirty  years 
longer,  this  stream  was  replenished  from  England 
proper :  so  that  afterwards  the  population  of  the  thickly 
settled  part  of  the  Province  was  so  thoroughly  English 
that  it  could  not  be  affected  by  the  Scotch  Irish  or  the 
Germans,  commonly  called  the  ' '  Pennsylvania  Dutch, ' ' 
when  those  semi-Scots  and  those  Palatinates  and  Swiss 
took  possession  of  the  mountainous  region.  Separate 
chapters  will  be  devoted  to  such:  we  will  now  confine 
ourselves  to  the  condition  and  ideas  of  the  element 
dominant  throughout  the  time  of  this  history. 

Penn  had  contemplated  as  his  holy  experiment  a 
Quaker  colony,  within  which  all  religions  should  be 
tolerated.  While  he  made  laws  with  the  latter  object, 
freeing  the  planters  from  tithes,  and  from  any  require- 
ment to  frequent  or  maintain  any  worship  contrary  to 
their  own  mind,  and  permitted  any  Christian  to  hold 
office,  he  induced  to  immigrate  from  Europe  such  num- 
bers of  his  co-religionists  as  gave  them  an  enormous 
preponderance  during  the  rest  of  that  century,  whether 
or  not  we  include  after  1692  the  Separatist  Quakers. 
Meetings  for  worship  had  been  held  on  the  Delaware 


134  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

before  Perm  received  the  royal  grant.  Those  worship- 
ping at  the  Palls  of  the  River  and  at  Chester  united 
in  a  Monthly  Meeting  at  the  latter  place  before  his  first 
arrival  in  the  Province.  A  Monthly  and  a  Quarterly 
Meeting  at  Philadelphia  were  established  in  1682,  and, 
under  the  latter,  there  were  started  in  the  following 
year  Monthly  Meetings  at  Radnor  and  Abington. 
Bucks  Quarterly  Meeting  started  with  Falls  and 
Middletown  Monthly  Meetings  and  in  1684  Darby  and 
Concord  Monthly  Meetings  were  established  under 
Chester  Quarterly  Meeting.  The  Quarterly  Meetings 
within  Pennsylvania  associated  with  those  in  New 
Jersey  and  Maryland  in  a  Yearly  Meeting,  which, 
first  held  in  Burlington  on  6,  31,  1681,  was  arranged  in 
1685  to  alternate  at  Philadelphia  and  Burlington,  and 
finally  in  1760  was  fixed  at  Philadelphia. 

The  earliest  meeting-house  erected  within  the  limits 
of  the  capital  city  of  the  Province  was  on  Delaware 
Front  Street  about  60  ft.  N.  of  Arch,  and  was  probably 
what  was  known  as  the  ' '  boarded  meeting-house, ' '  from 
its  material:  a  brick  building,  known  as  "Bank  Meet- 
ing" or  "Meeting  on  Delaware  Side,"  was  soon  put  on 
its  site.  A  meeting-house  at  the  Centre,  presumably 
on  the  lot  intended  by  Penn  for  it  at  Twelfth  and  High 
Streets,  was  commenced  in  1685,  completed  in  1689,  and 
torn  down  after  1700.  The  "great  meeting  house"  of 
the  period  of  this  history  was  at  the  S.  W.  cor.  Market 
and  Delaware  Second  streets,  begun  in  12th  month, 
1695,  and  used  from  6th  month  following,  and  pulled 
down  in  1755,  to  give  place  to  a  larger  structure 
(George  Vaux's  article  on  Early  Friends  Meeting- 
Houses  written  for  centennial  of  Fourth  and  Arch 
Meeting). 

By  the  time  of  the  English  Revolution,  the  "Children 
of  the  Light,"  as  they  first  called  themselves,  or 
"Quakers,"  as  they  were  nicknamed,  or  "Friends,"  as 
they  themselves  came  to  speak  of  those  composing  their 


The  People.  135 

Society,  had  been  gathering  together  for  about  forty- 
years,  and  had  had  an  organization  for  more  than  half 
that  period.  The  distinguishing  doctrine  was  as  to  the 
Inner  Light,  and  led  those  confident  of  or  seeking  di- 
rection by  that  Light  to  shut  themselves  off  from  the 
distractions  of  the  world,  such  as  music,  the  fine  arts, 
bright  colors,  the  flattery  paid  to  rank,  luxury,  etiquette, 
&ct.,  and  to  reject  sacraments,  priesthood,  ritual,  and 
even  to  some  extent  the  Protestants'  dependence  upon 
the  Bible.  Rather  as  afterthoughts  came  the  peculi- 
arities most  popularly  known:  the  refusal  to  take  an 
oath,  the  non-support  of  ministers,  the  avoidance  of 
bloodshed,  and  the  wearing  of  a  certain  garb.  All  these 
peculiarities  seem  to  have  been  pretty  generally 
adopted  among  the  Quakers  by  the  year  1688.  The 
garb  of  course  has  been  changed  from  time  to  time,  the 
Quakers  of  that  year,  at  least  in  America,  probably 
wearing  the  dress  of  English  tradespeople  with  an 
avoidance  of  ornament.  Penn  had  soon  found  that 
wearing  a  sword,  as  was  the  fashion  among  men  of  his 
station  in  life,  made  him  unpleasantly  conspicuous  at 
the  meetings,  and  his  wig  is  described  as  a  small  circle 
to  cover  the  baldness  resulting  from  imprisonment 
without  a  barber,  and  later  as  an  inexpensive  article 
to  keep  head  and  ears  warm. 

How  far  was  carried  the  discouragement  of  music 
and  painting  is  shown  in  two  instances.  The  Phila- 
delphia Monthly  Meeting  of  8th  month,  1696,  hearing 
that  Walter  Long  had  sold  Jews-harps,  sent  to  ad- 
monish him  to  take  them  back,  refund  the  money,  and 
return  the  Jews-harps  whence  they  came.  The  Meet- 
ing sent  also  to  speak  to  the  widow  Culcop  to  hand 
over  those  which  she  had  bought  from  Long.  Long 
agreed  to  sell  no  more,  and  take  back  those  sold,  and 
stand  half  the  loss.  About  fifty  years  later,  when,  in 
boyhood,  Benjamin  West,  who  was  born  near  the  site 
of  Swarthmore  College  was  showing  a  talent  for  paint- 


136  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

ing,  it  was  a  serious  question  among  the  Quakers  influ- 
ential with  his  parents  whether  it  would  be  right  to 
permit  the  exercise  of  his  skill.  Fortunately  the  weight- 
iest appreciated  that  the  talent  was  God-given.  Perhaps 
the  world  owes  to  the  Quaker  predilection  for  the  mat- 
ter of  fact  rather  than  the  imaginative  the  revolution 
which  West  made  in  the  portrayal  of  modern  battles, 
when  he  refused  to  dress  General  Wolfe  and  the  Indians 
as  Roman  soldiers. 

Before  the  Keithian  separation,  to  be  narrated  in  a 
special  chapter,  there  was  no  lasting  congregation  as- 
sembled in  Pennsylvania  outside  of  the  Society  of 
Friends  and  the  Church  of  Sweden,  except  two  little 
groups — hardly  congregations — of  Baptists,  one  being 
at  Cold  Spring,  Bucks  County,  which  was  established 
under  Rev.  Thomas  Dungan  from  Rhode  Island  about 
the  year  1682,  and  the  other  on  the  Pemmapecka  (or 
Pennypack)  Creek  in  Philadelphia  County,  of  which 
latter  group  Samuel  Jones  and  some  persons  named 
Eaton  had  come  about  1686  from  the  Baptist  Congrega- 
tion of  Rev.  Henry  Gregory  in  Radnorshire  followed  by 
John  Baker  from  the  congregation  at  Kilkenny,  Ireland, 
and  Samuel  Vaus  from  England.  Elias  Keach,  son  of 
the  celebrated  English  Baptist,  Rev.  Benjamin  Keach, 
was  ordained  by  Dungan,  baptized  John  Watts  and  sev- 
eral others,  and  became  in  Jany.,  1687-8,  minister  at 
Pennypack,  afterwards  going  to  England,  and  taking 
charge  of  a  congregation  there.  John  Holmes,  said  to 
have  been  from  Somersetshire,  and  some  time  in  the 
West  Indies,  and  to  have  arrived  in  Pennsylvania  in 
1686,  who  married  the  widow  of  Dr.  Nicholas  More, 
seems  to  have  been  the  most  conspicuous  Baptist  lay- 
man in  the  colony  before  1700. 

The  cost  of  maintaining  non-Quaker  services  was 
deterring.  Quakerism  had  financial  advantages  inde- 
pendent of  numerical  strength.  The  Quakers  felt  no 
call  to  set  apart  a  place  for  hallowed  uses,  and  could 


The  People.  137 

meet  in  private  houses  until  those  attending  were  too 
numerous  to  be  so  accommodated,  and  too  numerous 
to  feel  the  cost  divided  among  them  of  buying  and 
building  and  occasionally  warming:  and  the  Quakers 
paid  no  salaries  to  their  ministers.  When  the  Society 
of  Friends  had  the  only  religious  gatherings  in  a  local- 
ity, in  fact  when  Quaker  meetings  were  the  only  gather- 
ings of  any  sort,  the  Society  was  likely  to  gain  acces- 
sions. Also  we  must  notice  the  fact  that  Deists  and 
Roman  Catholics  would  find  it  less  troublesome  to 
masquerade  as  Quakers  than  as  any  other  Protestants, 
being  required  only  to  sit  still  in  meetings,  where  no 
sacraments  were  administered,  and  rarely,  if  ever,  a 
chapter  in  the  Bible  was  read.  When  the  civil  authori- 
ties relaxed  the  persecution  of  Quakers,  or  when  public 
opinion  was  tolerant  of  them,  as  was  not  the  case  with 
either  those  who  denied  Christ,  or  those  who  acknowl- 
edged the  supremacy  of  a  foreign  ecclesiastic,  some 
infidels  and  Papists,  no  doubt,  let  themselves  be  sup- 
posed to  be  Quakers,  there  being  no  formality  involving 
a  profession  of  faith.  The  remark  applies  more  par- 
ticularly to  the  growth  of  Quakerism  in  other  regions 
than  Pennsylvania,  and  is  not  to  be  understood  as  im- 
pugning the  sincerity  of  any  of  the  ministers  here  or 
elsewhere. 

From  1688  to  1692,  the  Monthly  and  Quarterly  Meet- 
ings in  Pennsylvania  itself,  although  it  was  not  so  in 
Delaware,  were  practically  the  organization  of  the 
Province  ecclesiastically  as  much  as  the  Governor  and 
freemen  represented  in  Council  and  Assembly  were  the 
organization  secularly.  During  those  years,  and  for 
some  time  afterwards,  the  leaders  in  the  former  organi- 
zation were  leaders  in  the  latter.  It  was  natural  that 
the  spiritual  relationship  through  which  the  emigrants 
had  first  known  of  one  another  should  be  so  reflected 
in  their  civil  government  as  to  make  it  a  theocracy. 
By  popular  choice,  the  Quaker  ministers  took  a  more 


138  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

important  part  in  the  temporal  business  of  the  infant 
commonwealth  than  by  custom  or  statute  the  bishops 
did  in  England.  This  union  of  capacities  in  the  same 
individuals,  whereby  retributive  justice  was  to  be  en- 
forced by  those  who  were  to  preach  and  exemplify 
meekness,  long  suffering,  and  forgiveness,  was  very 
awkward  for  them.  Even  when  the  ministers  were 
seldom  members  of  the  Council  or  Assembly,  but  those 
bodies  were  largely,  sometimes  entirely,  composed  of 
those  who  had  scruples  against  war,  the  reference  of 
the  question  of  participation  in  military  measures  to 
those  bodies  worked  badly  for  the  group  of  British 
colonies,  and  for  the  empire  of  which  this  community 
was  a  part. 

The  Society  of  Friends  had  been  recruited  from 
those  social  classes  which  were  considerably  above 
George  Fox,  its  recognized  Founder,  a  shoemaker,  and 
considerably  below  Kobert  Barclay,  its  great  Apologist, 
almost  a  noble,  descended  in  the  female  line  from  the 
Gordons  and  the  first  King  James  of  Scotland.  It 
became  the  Pennsylvania  Assembly's  boast,  as  ex- 
pressed on  Dec.  18,  1706,  that  "this  Province  was  not 
at  first  settled,  as  some  others  were,  either  at  the  charge 
of  the  Crown  or  of  any  private  man ;  nor  was  it  peopled 
with  the  purges  of  English  prisons,  but  by  men  of 
sobriety  and  substance,  who  were  induced  chiefly  by  the 
Constitution  which  by  contract  with  the  Proprietary 
was  to  be  established  as  that  the  purchasers  and  ad- 
venturers were  to  have  greater  privileges  than  they 
enjoyed  in  their  native  countries."  Of  course,  there 
were  persons  brought  over  at  other's  expense  and  even 
without  their  own  volition,  as  some  of  the  servants  and 
sailors,  but  a  number  who  came  as  servants  or  sailors 
were  very  shortly  afterwards  to  be  described  as  prop- 
erty-holders or  officers.  When,  in  1685,  a  large  number 
— Penn  says,  about  1000 — of  Monmouth's  rebels  were 
to  be  transported,  Penn,  before  Oct.  2,  begged  and  ob- 


The  People.  139 

tained  twenty  as  a  present  from  King  James.  It  would 
be  interesting  to  identify  these.  It  may  be  confidently 
asserted  that  they  welcomed  the  diversion  to  Perm's 
dominions,  and  obtained  with  their  safety  a  fair  posi- 
tion in  life:  and  the  same  may  have  been  the  fate  of 
several  runaways,  who  came  certainly  ' '  to  have  greater 
privileges ' '  than  where  they  had  been  residing.  So  the 
exceptions  to  the  Assembly's  generalization  were  few. 

On  the  other  hand,  Fox's  only  visit  to  the  Delaware 
was  in  1672,  Barclay  never  saw  it,  Penn  can  not  truly 
be  called  a  settler,  and,  as  a  rule,  the  wealthiest  and 
the  most  important  Quakers  did  not  transfer  them- 
selves to  this  ' '  land  of  promise ; "  in  fact,  as  we  learn 
from  Hugh  Roberts's  letter  to  Penn  (Pemia.  Mag.  Hist., 
Vol.  XVIII,  p.  205),  many  Friends  disapproved  of  the 
movement.  The  richest  of  the  Quakers  who  came  were 
probably  Robert  Turner,  some  time  a  merchant  in 
Dublin  (ancestor  of  the  Rawle  family),  Samuel  Car- 
penter, some  time  in  the  West  Indies,  and  Edward 
Shippen,  some  time  a  merchant  in  Boston.  Turner  and 
Carpenter  were  among  the  first  purchasers,  and  came 
in  the  earliest  years  of  William  Penn's  rule:  Penn 
agreed  in  1690  to  sell  to  Shippen  for  100Z.  about  250 
acres  adjoining  Philadelphia  on  the  south,  nearly  all 
of  which  afterwards  descended  to  his  family,  but  he 
did  not  come  until  in  or  after  1693,  in  which  year  it  is 
said  that  a  meteor  had  been  seen  in  Boston,  and  had 
been  interpreted  by  some  inhabitants  as  a  Divine  warn- 
ing to  be  more  active  against  Baptists  and  Quakers,  so 
that  Shippen  felt  that  it  would  be  pleasanter  outside  of 
Massachusetts.  Turner  was  perhaps  less  rich  than 
Carpenter  or  Shippen:  Carpenter  was  ultimately 
obliged  to  sacrifice  much  property:  while  Shippen,  "the 
biggest  man, ' '  and  afterwards  celebrated  for  ' '  the  big- 
gest house  and  the  biggest  coach,"  was  hardly  exalted 
much  above  ordinary  men  of  property  by  the  fortune 
of  10,000/,  which  he  is  said  to  have  brought  on  arrival, 


140  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

multiplied  as  was  in  those  days  its  present  purchasing 
value.  Thomas  Lloyd,  for  whom  a  royal  descent  has 
been  traced,  had  no  prestige  on  account  of  it.  In  promi- 
nence as  an  apostle  of  the  doctrines,  George  Keith  alone 
of  the  settlers  could  be  classed  with  Fox,  Barclay,  and 
Penn.  Thus  there  came  men  who  had  lived  at  one  time 
under  the  English  Commonwealth,  pious,  self  respect- 
ing, and,  except  when  indentured  as  servants,  indepen- 
dent, all,  including  many  of  their  "help,"  sprung  from 
early  surroundings  of  no  great  variety,  none  looked 
up  to  except  for  their  "gift"  of  the  ministry,  and  such 
really  of  secondary  importance  in  the  sect  at  large.  To 
be  sure,  counting  both  the  Quakers  and  non-Quakers, 
the  settlers  of  Pennsylvania  in  Penn's  day  above  the 
grade  of  day  laborers  averaged  as  high  in  the  matter 
of  original  worldly  station  as  the  emigrants  above  the 
grade  of  day  laborers  to  other  parts  of  the  United 
States.  A  different  impression  may  have  been  received 
from  particular  items,  and  from  the  talk  about  the 
"cavaliers"  of  "the  Old  Dominion"  and  the  lords  of 
manors  in  the  land  of  the  "Knickerbockers"  and  the 
religious  exiles  among  the  progenitors  of  the  Carolina 
"chivalry:"  but  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  nearly 
every  lord,  baronet,  and  knight  who  went  to  Virginia 
died  without  issue  male,  that  the  prefix  "van,"  which 
looks  so  much  like  the  aristocratic  "de"  or  "von,"  was 
used  in  America  as  a  rule  to  introduce  the  name  of  the 
place  from  which  the  immigrant  came,  instead  of  the 
estate  of  his  ancient  ancestors,  and  that  the  Huguenots 
who  crossed  the  ocean  except  a  few  petty  "seigneurs" 
were  tradespeople  or  mechanics.  It  can  be  shown  that 
the  immigrant  ancestor  of  nearly  every  one  of  the  first 
families  of  those  colonies  where  subsequently  there  was 
a  following  of  fashion,  had  his  equal  among  those  con- 
temporaries whose  children  or  grandchildren  came  to 
the  region  of  Quaker  plainness.  Yet  the  summary  can 
be  made  that  the  emigrants  from  the  British  Isles 


The  People.  141 

hither,  except  some  Welsh  gentlemen  of  little  or  no 
estate,  nearly  all  came  from  a  worldly  station  one  or 
more  degrees  below  the  poorer  gentry. 

Thanks  to  the  political  and  religious  excitation  in 
every  British  community  and  the  number  of  schools 
partly  free  within  reach,  mental  development  and  lit- 
erary information  were  not  engrossed  by  those  in 
higher  station.  A  lower  class  had  produced  John 
Bunyan  and  Cardinal  Wolsey;  while  Shakspeare  could 
not,  if  Bacon  could,  be  said  to  have  belonged  to  a 
higher.  No  small  number  of  polemic  and  didactic 
pamphlets  came  from  the  ranks  of  the  Quakers;  and 
even  such  a  mere  local  celebrity  as  Caleb  Pusey,  in  an 
answer  to  George  Keith,  wrote  like  a  great  theologian. 
The  first  printing  press  in  the  part  of  the  world  between 
Massachusetts  and  Mexico  was  set  up  in  Philadelphia, 
before  this  history  opens.  The  printer  was  William 
Bradford,  a  Quaker  from  Yorkshire,  who  had  worked 
for  Andrew  Sowle  in  London.  In  Bradford's  pam- 
phlets appear  Greek  and  Hebrew  letters.  While  many 
of  the  Welsh  who  came  over  were  physicians,  a  number 
of  the  English  were  schoolmasters,  and  it  was  a  time 
when  Latin  and  Greek  and  Hebrew  were  more  com- 
monly studied  in  schools  than  at  present.  Of  course, 
there  were  not  the  same  number  of  matriculates  of 
English  colleges  as  had  gone  to  New  England  as  Puri- 
tan divines  two  or  three  generations  before.  Never- 
theless, some  of  the  early  Friends  in  Pennsylvania, 
were  graduates  of  colleges  in  the  British  Isles,  and  had 
been  ministers  of  non-Quaker  congregations.  An  ex- 
monk,  John  Gray,  alias  Tatham,  of  the  Benedictine 
congregation  at  St.  James's,  came  over,  and  joined 
Charles  Pickering  and  others  in  obtaining  a  survey  of 
ore  lands.  The  King  ordered  Gray  to  return.  Penn 
declared  the  survey  irregular,  perhaps  because  contra- 
vening the  rule  to  keep  the  ore  land  for  the  Proprietary. 
Perm  was  accused,  by  those  who  wished  to  prove  him 


142  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

a  Papist  in  disguise,  of  having  the  aforesaid  ex-monk 
kidnapped  and  taken  over  to  England,  to  be  delivered 
to  those  whom  he  had  forsaken.  However,  he  declared 
Penn  not  guilty,  and  returned  to  Pennsylvania  before 
Oct.  20,  1688,  and  was  afterwards  an  important  man  in 
New  Jersey,  where  he  lived  with  a  wife  Elizabeth.  A 
son  survived  him.  "While  the  Established  Churches  of 
the  Old  World  had  institutions  of  learning,  and  the 
anti-prelatists  of  New  England  had  Harvard  College, 
the  Society  of  Friends  did  not  train  young  men  for 
the  profession  of  preaching;  so  the  scholars  in  divinity 
in  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware  were  to  be  looked  for 
among  non-Quakers.  In  fact,  the  immigrants  or  so- 
journers from  Continental  or  Scandinavian  Europe 
included  most  of  the  men  who  had  taken  any  University 
course. 

The  Quakers,  moreover,  tried  to  adjust  disputes 
between  one  another,  the  Meetings  hearing  and  acting 
upon  complaints  against  a  member,  even  by  persons 
not  in  good  standing  in  the  Society,  and  it  was  a  viola- 
tion of  Gospel  order  to  obtain  satisfaction  at  law, 
unless  private  appeal  to  the  delinquent  and  the  decision 
of  examiners  appointed  by  the  Meeting  had  been  in 
vain.  So  the  Quakers  rather  looked  askance  at  those 
who  argued  in  court.  We  know  of  a  Welsh  attorney, 
Griffith  Jones,  in  Kent  County,  with  the  reputation  of  an 
orator,  evidently  the  person  of  that  name  who  headed 
a  petition  to  Sir  Edmund  Andros  (Penna.  Archives, 
2nd  Series,  Vol.  VII,  p.  815),  closing  with  the  words: 
"That  age  may  crowne  your  Snowy  haires  with  Caesar's 
honours  and  with  Nestor's  yeares."  There  was  con- 
temporary with  him  another  Griffith  Jones,  a  merchant 
in  Philadelphia,  who  was  a  Quaker.  When,  in  1695, 
the  Churchmen  of  the  province  got  up  a  petition  to  have 
the  services  of  a  minister  and  the  right  to  arm  for 
defence,  the  Welsh  attorney  Griffith  Jones  was  sup- 
posed to  have  written  the  petition,  so  he  was  probably 


The  People.  143 

a  Churchman.  At  that  time  there  seem  to  have  been 
but  two  other  lawyers  in  Penn's  dominions,  viz:  John 
Moore,  a  Churchman,  and  David  Lloyd,  who  had  read 
at  the  Temple,  and  who,  Gov.  Gookin  relates,  had  been 
bred  under  Lord  Jefferies,  but,  marrying  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, had  turned  Quaker.  Burton  Alva  Konkle  has 
prepared  a  Life  of  David  Lloyd,  to  which  the  reader 
is  referred  when  the  account  in  this  book  of  Lloyd  and 
his  political  party  and  their  labors  does  not  seem  ex- 
haustive or  sufficiently  laudatory.  What  grade  Moore 
or  Lloyd  had  in  their  profession  at  home,  we  do  not 
know.  About  a  half  a  dozen  persons  trained  to  the 
law  came  over  about  the  time  of  Penn's  second  visit. 
Finally,  Acts  of  Assembly  made  provision  for  a  body 
of  attorneys  admitted  by  the  courts  to  practise. 

Those  non-Quakers  who  might  have  claimed  to  be  the 
patricians  of  the  immigration  in  Penn's  time  were 
mostly  his  relatives  or  connections  or  the  companions 
in  arms  of  his  father,  glad  to  get  public  office  or  a  cheap 
habitation.  Of  the  Quakers  or  non-Quakers  who  came 
before  1688,  several  had  been  captains  in  the  navy: 
William  Markham,  the  first  Deputy  Governor,  William 
Crispin,  one  of  the  three  commissioners  appointed  on 
Sep.  30,  1681,  and  Thomas  Holme,  the  first  Surveyor- 
General.  There  was  also  Major  Jasper  Farmer  from 
Ireland  (see  early  editions  of  Burke's  Landed  Gentry). 
Farmer,  who  is  said,  probably  incorrectly,  not  to  have 
reached  our  shores,  died  in  1685.  He  and  his  son 
Jasper,  who  had  bought  together  5000  acres,  received 
a  patent  in  1684  for  land  fronting  upon  the  Schuylkill, 
covering  the  greater  part  of  what  is  now  Whitemarsh 
Township,  Montgomery  County.  Having  brought  over 
a  number  of  servants,  the  family  long  lived  there.  About 
the  time  of  Penn's  second  visit,  Eobert  Assheton,  of 
Salford,  Lancashire,  whose  mother  was  Penn's  near  re- 
lation, and  whose  father  was  a  Deputy  Herald,  was  in- 
duced to  come  to  take  a  court  clerkship.    Capt.  Samuel 


144  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Finney,  Eobert  Assheton's  kinsman,  is  said  to  have 
accompanied  Penn  on  this  second  voyage.  Finney  had 
become  rich  in  Barbados,  and,  after  returning  to  Eng- 
land, had  built  Fulshaw  Hall  in  Cheshire  about  1684, 
and  had  raised  a  troop  for  the  Prince  of  Orange,  and 
had  afterwards  been  a  merchant  at  Chetham  Hill  near 
Manchester.  His  son  and  heir-apparent,  Captain  John, 
who  had  been  cornet  in  Captain  Samuel's  troop,  and 
had  afterwards  served  in  Flanders,  accompanied  him 
to  America,  apparently  from  political  ambition,  which 
was  doomed  not  to  be  fully  satisfied.  Samuel  Finney 
and  several  of  his  children  made  Pennsylvania  their 
permanent  home,  but  John,  after  being  one  of  the  Gov- 
ernor 's  Council,  returned  to  England,  and  died  at  Ful- 
shaw Hall  in  1728. 

How  such  patrician  stock  except  the  Asshetons  soon 
sank  in  importance  is  illustrated  in  the  posterity  of 
Markham,  so  long  the  head  of  the  Colony.  He  used  as 
a  seal,  with  an  impalement  which  has  not  been  identi- 
fied, the  ancient  arms  borne  by  those  of  his  name.  His 
father's  first  name  and  career,  we  do  not  know,  but  the 
mother  was  a  sister  of  Admiral  Penn.  Apparently 
older  than  the  Founder,  Markham  had  begun  service  in 
the  navy  before  the  taking  in  1658  of  Dunkirk,  being 
in  the  fleet  which  rode  before  it  on  that  occasion,  and 
subsequently  had  been  six  years  with  Sir  John  Lawson, 
and  in  the  fleet  which  brought  Charles  II  back  to  Eng- 
land, and  at  the  attack  on  Algiers,  and  in  the  Dutch 
wars  of  1665-6  and  1672-3.  Evidently  his  career  had 
not  only  betokened  ability,  which  seemed  to  fit  him  to 
organize  Penn's  government,  but  had  given  him  some 
acquaintances  and  influence,  causing  him  to  be  sent 
back  to  England  in  the  summer  of  1683  as  Penn 's  agent 
in  the  boundary  dispute.  Later  pages  will  give  Mark- 
ham's  official  career  after  his  return.  He  married 
twice  at  least,  an  early  wife  being  apparently  the  Mrs. 
Markham  mentioned   in   Pepys's   Diary  as   twice   in 


The  People.  145 

Pepys  's  company  at  dinner  or  supper  in  1666,  and  first 
figuring  thus:  "Aug.  6,  1666,  .  .  .  Nan  at  Sir  W. 
Pen's  lately  married  to  one  Markeham,  a  kinsman  of 
Sir  W.  Pen's — a  pretty  wench  she  is."  This  does  not 
necessarily  mean  that  she  had  been  a  servant.  William 
Markham  had  a  daughter  Ann,  who  in  January,  1699- 
1700,  is  spoken  of  as  his  only  child,  and  whom  he, 
probably  when  coming  to  America  in  1681,  left  in  the 
care  of  William  Penn,  for  she  was  seven  years  one  of 
Penn's   household.     Late  in  life,   Markham  married 

Joanna ,  a  widow,  whose  daughter  married 

Jacob  Regnier,  a  lawyer  in  New  York.  Joanna  Mark- 
ham had  a  nephew  Theodore  Colby.  Ann  Markham 
married  a  sea  captain,  James  Brown,  who  will  be  men- 
tioned as  suspected  of  piracy.  They  had  three  children. 
Markham  leaving  what  property  he  had  to  the  step- 
mother, and  the  latter  removing  to  New  York,  and 
Brown  dying,  Ann  followed  to  that  city,  and  tried  to 
support  herself  as  a  midwife.  Her  claims  made  against 
certain  property  after  her  stepmother's  death  being 
rejected,  the  Proprietaries,  out  of  compassion,  granted 
something  to  this  relative.  Two  of  her  children  died 
at  an  early  age  without  issue;  the  survivor,  Joanna, 
married  John  Barker,  but  appears  to  have  been  the  last 
of  Markham 's  family,  when,  about  1767,  the  Proprie- 
taries pensioned  her.  Her  board  being  paid  to  Penelope 
Healy,  Mrs.  Barker  was  still  living  at  the  beginning  of 
the  American  Revolution.  A  social  club  in  Philadelphia 
and  one  or  two  unimportant  railroad  stations  perpetu- 
ate the  name  of  Markham. 

To  persons  of  higher  social  rank  than  those  whom 
we  have  mentioned,  a  frontier  inhabited  by  such  serious, 
utilitarian,  and  disapproving  people  as  the  Quakers, 
afforded  no  attractions,  and  could  only  be  a  place  of 
refuge.  Acrelius  tells  us  of  Baron  Isaac  Baner,  a 
Swede,  who,  after  being  in  the  service  of  William  III 
of  England,  settled  in  Philadelphia  in  1695,  and  after- 

10 


146  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

wards  removed  to  the  Lower  Counties,  where  he  tried 
to  support  himself  at  first  by  keeping  a  small  store, 
and  where  he  married,  had  children,  and  died  in  1713, 
leaving  a  destitute  family.  His  relatives  in  Sweden,  a 
Lieutenant-General  and  a  Royal  Councillor,  sent  for 
the  children  in  1727,  and,  Deputy  Governor  Gordon 
escorting  them  to  the  ship,  they  sailed  by  way  of  Lon- 
don. The  wife  of  Sir  Robert  Newcomen,  Bart.,  un- 
happy in  her  married  life,  came  over  in  1702,  and,  under 
the  name  of  Mary  Phillips,  boarded  with  Penn's  cousins 
the  Asshetons.  She  was  a  daughter  of  Arthur  Chi- 
chester, 2nd  Earl  of  Donegal,  by  his  Countess,  who  had 
married,  2ndly,  Penn's  cousin  Richard  Rooth.  Incog- 
nito, Lady  Newcomen  set  no  fashions,  and  on  the  delay 
of  her  remittance  had  the  prospect  of  doing  ironing — 
however,  Sir  Robert  ultimately  allowed  her  £50  sterling 
per  annum.  She  went  back  in  1712.  She  had  six  chil- 
dren by  Sir  Robert. 

When  it  became  common  for  the  needy,  the  criminal, 
or  the  troublesome  to  come  or  be  sent  over,  and  to 
reimburse  those  who  transported  him  or  her  by  being 
sold  as  a  laborer  for  a  term  of  years,  there  was,  as  an 
involuntary  resident,  James  Annesley,  his  assertion  of 
noble  parentage  and  of  relatives'  knavery  being  dis- 
regarded. A  book  called  The  Memoirs  of  an  Unfortu- 
nate Young  Nobleman  returned  from  a  thirteen  years 
slavery  in  America,  published  in  London  in  1743,  tells, 
with  some  disguise  of  names,  a  marvellous  tale  of  his 
early  experiences,  his  life  in  Penn's  dominions,  the 
suicide  of  an  Indian  girl  in  love  with  him,  the  behavior 
of  his  master's  daughter,  &ct.,  all  of  which  is  condensed 
in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine,  Vols.  XIII  &  XIV.  Neg- 
lected by  the  profligate  Arthur,  4th  Lord  Altham,  who 
was  pretty  surely  his  father,  the  subject  of  the  memoir, 
by  the  agency  of  his  uncle  Richard,  who  assumed  the 
title,  was  taken  from  squalid  surroundings  at  the 
father's  death,  and  decoyed,  being  about  thirteen  years 


The  People.  147 

old,  into  going  aboard  a  ship  which  sailed  for  Phila- 
delphia on  April  30,  1728.  Consigned  to  the  captain 
to  be  disposed  of  as  a  servant,  Annesley,  on  arrival, 
was  bought  by  a  farmer.  In  an  attempt  to  escape  from 
drudgery  and  privation,  Annesley  fell  in  with  a  man 
and  woman  eloping  from  her  husband,  attended  by  a 
servant,  and  was  captured  with  them,  and  was  sent  to 
the  pillory.  Annesley,  reclaimed  by  his  master,  finally, 
in  1739,  escaped  to  Jamaica,  and  there,  in  September, 
1740,  enlisted  as  a  common  sailor  on  a  man-of-war. 
Through  a  lieutenant,  who  had  been  a  schoolmate,  the 
identity  was  revealed  to  the  Captain,  and  through  him 
to  Admiral  Vernon,  who  released  Annesley  from  his 
enlistment,  and  sent  him  to  England  to  recover  his 
rights.  His  uncle,  meanwhile,  at  the  death  of  a  cousin, 
had  taken  the  additional  titles  of  Earl  of  Anglesey  in 
the  peerage  of  England  and  Viscount  Valentia  in  that 
of  Ireland,  which  titles,  as  well  as  that  of  Baron  Altham 
in  the  peerage  of  Ireland,  should  have  gone  to  James, 
if,  as  he  claimed,  he  was  the  son  of  Lord  and  Lady 
Altham.  James  Annesley  was  welcomed  by  many 
people  in  Ireland,  and  his  uncle  was  disposed  to  com- 
promise with  him,  and  had  him  taught  French ;  but,  on 
James  killing  a  man  in  "chance  medley,"  the  uncle 
strove  to  have  him  convicted  of  murder,  as  a  way  of 
getting  rid  of  him ;  but  he  was  triumphantly  acquitted. 
James  brought  ejectment  for  certain  Irish  property, 
and,  although  the  evidence  given  rather  pointed  to  his 
having  been  the  4th  Lord's  bastard,  the  verdict  of  the 
jury  on  Nov.  25,  1743,  was  in  his  favor;  but,  lacking 
the  money  to  prosecute  his  claims  thoroughly,  and  in 
face  of  legal  obstructions,  he  never  obtained  wealth  or 
title.  He  died  (Gent's  Mag.)  Jan.  3,  1760,  leaving  chil- 
dren, but  his  two  sons  died  a  very  few  years  later  and 
presumably  without  issue. 

Being  settled  at  a  date  in  the  history  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  race  when  class  distinctions  and  privileges  had 


148  Chkonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

weakened  to  a  considerable  extent,  and  by  persons 
among  whom  there  were  no  great  inequalities  of  birth, 
and  because  of  the  brotherly  feeling  of  a  band  of  re- 
ligionists, and  still  more  because  of  the  sentiments  of 
the  sect,  Pennsylvania  was  less  affected  than  other 
colonies  by  the  idea  of  caste.  The  Quakers  were  level- 
lers. They  had  wished  to  get  rid  of  the  vain  distinctions 
of  the  world.  While  we  need  not  credit  family  tradi- 
tions of  a  Quaker  ancestor  taking  up  a  humble  trade, 
as  a  matter  of  religion,  when  belonging  to  a  class 
thought  to  be  considerably  above  workers  at  such  trade, 
yet  it  is  a  fact  that  among  Quakers  there  was  not  a  social 
stratification  according  to  business  occupation.  They 
were  not  communists  or  socialists  or  equalizers  of  pri- 
vate wealth,  or  such  as  scrupled  at  the  laying  up  of 
treasure ;  and  the  natural  tendency  of  a  Quaker  estate 
when  once  fairly  started  was  to  grow  faster  than  that 
of  a  less  ascetic  owner.  Sydney  George  Fisher  has  well 
said  that  a  consistent  Quaker  could  not  spend  a  large 
fortune  except  in  charity.  At  the  same  time,  the  Meet- 
ing supervised  a  man's  conduct  in  business  with  the 
penalty  of  disownment,  quite  severe  when  there  were 
none  but  Quakers  to  associate  with ;  and  thus  extortion, 
non-payment  of  debts,  reckless  speculation,  and  some 
tricks  of  trade  were  eliminated  as  sources  of  riches. 
By  the  discountenancing  of  luxury  and  show,  the  dif- 
ference between  the  rich  and  the  poor  was  less  observ- 
able. It  was  a  long  time  before  Pennsylvania  had 
anything  like  a  "submerged  tenth"  or  pauper  class. 
The  industry  characteristic  of  the  disciples  of  Fox,  and 
the  rich  soil  obtained  by  the  purchasers  from  Penn, 
combined  to  provide  nearly  every  settler  with  enough 
and  to  spare.  Poverty  came  only  through  failure  of 
crops,  losses  by  sea,  or  bodily  injury.  A  member  of 
Meeting  who  had  lost  by  misfortune  was  again  started 
in  life,  and  measures  were  taken  that  the  children  of 
the  poor  should  have  from  education  and  care  their 


The  People.  149 

chance  with  others.  When  into  the  colony  were  intro. 
duced  persons  of  all  grades,  habits,  and  principles, 
inequalities  came  inevitably:  but  as  a  rule,  the  rich, 
however  well  satisfied  with  their  own  or  their  fathers' 
moral  superiority,  were  not  inclined  to  assume  the 
appearance  of  an  aristocracy  deriving  consideration 
from  "carnal"  ideas. 

The  formation  of  a  landed  oligarchy  was  not  facili- 
tated in  Penn's  dominion.  Mention  has  been  made  how 
small  were  the  tracts  of  the  first  purchasers  from 
William  Penn,  and  how,  by  the  regulations,  the  reten- 
tion of  a  location  depended  upon  its  being  peopled,  and 
how  the  tracts  of  over  5000  acres  before  very  long  were 
cut  up. 

A  resident  country  gentry  conspicuous  in  respective 
neighbourhoods  by  number  of  acres  and  mode  of  life 
was  not  established.  Except  Dr.  More,  before  men- 
tioned, and  the  Growdons  at ' '  Trevose, ' '  Bucks  County, 
and  one  or  two  others,  the  first  purchasers  of  as  many 
as  5000  acres,  and  those  who  afterwards  bought  plan- 
tations of  that  size,  did  not  reside  upon  them.  The 
wealthy  men  of  the  province  lived  in  its  city  with  in 
later  times  a  country  place  near  by,  but  in  size  very 
different  from  the  landed  estate  of  a  rural  grandee  of 
New  York,  Virginia,  or  South  Carolina. 

The  laws  of  Pennsylvania  interfered  with  the  un- 
fairness by  which  many  landed  estates  have  been  pre- 
served and  increased.  In  the  first  place,  as  to  being 
withheld  from  creditors,  "the  Laws  agreed  upon  in 
England ' '  made  all  lands  and  goods  liable  to  pay  debts 
except  where  there  was  lawful  issue,  and  then  all  the 
goods  and  one  third  of  the  land.  This  was  changed  by 
the  Great  Law  passed  at  Chester  so  that,  in  case  of 
issue,  all  the  goods  were  liable  and  half  the  land,  in 
case  the  land  was  bought  before  the  debt  was  con- 
tracted. By  various  temporary  laws  and  a  permanent 
one  of  Fletcher's  time,  all  lands  were  subjected  to  sale 


150  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

on  judgment  and  execution  against  the  defendant  or 
his  heirs,  executors,  or  administrators,  but  the  mes- 
suage and  plantation  on  which  the  defendant  was  resid- 
ing was  not  to  be  sold  until  the  last,  and  not  until  a  year 
after  the  judgment.  When  Penn  was  on  his  second 
visit  to  Pennsylvania,  a  clause  was  adopted  requiring 
the  personalty  to  be  sold  first.  In  Fletcher's  time  was 
introduced  the  liability  of  all  the  real  estate  as  well  as 
personalty  of  any  decedent  to  sale  for  payment  of  debts 
by  the  executor  or  administrator  under  approval  of  a 
court,  or  by  judgment  and  proceedings  of  court  except 
where  the  personal  property  was  sufficient. 

There  was  a  remedy,  too,  against  an  inheritance  in- 
creasing in  value  while  the  family  starved.  Following 
a  temporary  law  of  earlier  date,  Fletcher  enacted  in 
1694  that  the  widow  or  administrator  of  an  intestate 
might,  in  case  of  considerable  debt  or  charge  of  child 
or  children,  sell  such  part  of  the  intestate's  lands  as 
the  Council  or  County  Court  should  think  fit  for  paying 
the  debts,  educating  the  children,  supporting  the  widow, 
and  improving  the  rest  of  the  estate  to  their  advantage. 

In  the  next  place,  while  the  English  common  law 
tended  towards  the  monopoly  of  land,  the  statutes  of 
Pennsylvania  almost  always  required  the  division  of 
what  a  man  left  at  his  death.  By  the  charter  of  Charles 
II,  the  laws  of  England  were  to  govern  the  descent  of 
land  and  the  succession  to  personalty  in  Pennsylvania 
until  altered  by  the  Proprietary  and  freemen.  The 
first  enactment  to  curtail  the  unfair  benefit  of  primo- 
geniture went  into  force  in  April,  1683,  providing  that 
the  whole  estate  in  the  Province  and  Territories,  unless 
an  equal  provision  had  been  arranged  for  with  property 
elsewhere,  should  go,  after  payment  of  debts,  one  third 
to  the  wife,  and  one  third  to  the  children  equally,  and 
the  other  third  as  the  decedent  pleased;  if  his  wife 
were  dead,  two  thirds  to  the  children  equally,  and  one 
third  as  he  pleased,  his  debts  being  first  paid,  whereas 


The  People.  151 

if  he  died  intestate,  the  estate  should  go  to  his  wife 
and  children,  but  if  he  left  neither  wife  nor  child,  then 
to  his  brothers  and  sisters  or  to  the  children  of  his 
brothers  and  sisters;  if  there  were  none,  one  half  to 
the  parents,  and  the  other  half  to  the  next  of  kin;  if 
no  parents,  the  half  should  go  to  the  Governor,  and  if 
no  kindred  claiming  within  three  years,  the  other  half 
to  the  public.  This  same  law,  as  we  see,  interfered 
with  the  power  of  a  parent  to  aggrandize  one  child  by 
disinheriting  the  rest.  As  the  words  of  the  law  did  not 
say  what  the  division  should  be  between  wife  and  chil- 
dren in  cases  of  intestacy,  chapter  CLXXII,  passed  in 
3mo.,  1684,  fixed  it  thus :  one  third  of  the  lands  to  the 
wife  during  her  life,  the  rest  to  the  children,  the  eldest 
son  taking  a  double  share :  if  there  were  no  child,  half  of 
the  real  estate  to  the  wife  for  life,  the  rest  to  the  intes- 
tate's kin.  The  limitation  upon  the  right  to  dispose  by 
will  was  removed  in  1693,  when  also  the  right  of  the  chil- 
dren of  deceased  relations  to  take  their  parents'  share 
was  recognized,  and  it  was  explained  that,  except  where 
the  eldest  son  was  concerned,  the  division  among  rela- 
tions in  equal  degree  should  be  equal.  The  right  of 
children  of  deceased  brethren  to  take  the  share  which 
their  parent  would  have  taken  if  living,  was  allowed 
by  act  of  1700. 

The  act  of  Jany.  12,  1705-6,  made  the  children  share 
the  land  equally,  the  widow  taking  the  same  share  as  a 
child.  There  was  nothing  said  to  limit  her  interest  to  a 
life  estate,  and  apparently  she  was  always  allowed  to 
have  a  fee  simple  until  the  act  of  February  4,  1748-9, 
prescribed  a  different  construction  of  the  aforesaid  law. 

There  were  good  reasons  why  the  Quaker  province 
attracted,  besides  the  Quakers  and  the  separatists  wish- 
ing to  be  undisturbed  in  religion,  those  who  were  not 
sure  of  the  means  of  support  at  home.  Here  was  good 
soil,  cheap  land,  a  well  behaved  population,  public  senti- 
ment in  favor  of  the  simplest  style  of  living,  no  danger 


152  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

from  the  aborigines,  no  military  service,  nothing  to  pay 
for  a  military  or  ecclesiastical  establishment,  a  govern- 
ment run  at  the  least  cost  possible,  there  being  no  hand- 
some houses  provided  for  the  acting  Governors,  and 
such  acting  Governors  as  received  salaries  other  than 
occasional  sums  drawing  their  pay  from  William  Penn 
until  the  XVIIth  Century  closed.  If  a  man  wished  to 
get  drunk,  or  break  Sabbath,  or  have  certain  sports,  he 
found  the  laws  decidedly  ' '  blue ; ' '  but  it  was  the  era  of 
"blue  laws."  On  the  other  hand,  if  his  necessities  drove 
him  to  some  small  theft,  the  punishment  was  lighter 
than  at  home :  however,  it  was  only  after  the  colony  had 
been  in  existence  a  number  of  years  that  Pennsylvania 
was  to  any  degree  a  resort  for  persons  looking  forward 
to  crime. 

In  due  time,  among  the  immigrants  of  English  or 
Welsh  birth  or  ancestry,  the  non-Quakers  outnumbered 
the  Quakers.  Differing  from  the  latter  in  matters  of 
religion,  and  at  times  in  earnest  dispute  and  bitter 
anger  against  them  over  certain  measures  of  civil  gov- 
ernment, yet  these  non-Quakers  attempted  only  spo- 
radically to  lessen  the  Quaker's  share  in  legislation, 
and  largely  combined  with  them  on  questions  not  inter- 
fering with  the  Church  of  the  one  or  the  conscience  of 
the  other,  and  made  lasting  the  impression  upon  the 
community  of  the  social  and  political  principles  of  the 
co-religionists  of  the  Founder  of  the  Colony. 


CHAPTER   VI 

A  Republican  Feudatory. 

Powers  granted  by  Charles  II — Penn's  attitude 
as  to  war — Penn's  claim  to  greatness — His  sug- 
gestion of  Union  of  the  Colonies  and  of  a  Parlia- 
ment of  Europe — His  character  and  abilities — 
Covenant  for  a  Democracy — Delaware  taken  into 
Union — Naturalization — General  Suffrage — Frame 
of  1683 — Eeligious  freedom— All  Christians  eligible 
to  office — The  theological  tests  in  England — 
"Solemn  promise"  of  witnesses — Unsettled  laws — 
Absentee  rule  by  the  Penns — Thomas  Lloyd  and 
other  deputies — Fortune  inherited  by  William 
Penn  and  his  first  wife — Too  small  for  his  under- 
taking— Philip  Ford — Eeceipts  and  indebtedness 
— Penn  very  prominent  in  England — James  II 
and  the  Quakers — Penn  at  the  time  of  the  Revo- 
lution. 

The  Charter  of  King  Charles  II  not  only  made 
William  Penn  and  his  heirs  and  assigns  feudal  lords 
of  the  soil,  but  added  an  authority  in  him  and  his  heirs 
like  that  of  Viceroy.  The  clause  directly  granting 
powers  of  legislation  did  not  extend  them  to  his  assigns, 
although  the  clause  providing  for  certain  laws  of  Eng- 
land to  be  temporarily  in  force,  said  that  they  should 
be  so  until  altered  by  him,  his  heirs  and  assigns,  and  by 
the  freemen,  their  delegates  or  deputies  or  the  greater 
part  of  them.  Penn  or  his  heirs  or  his  or  their  Deputies 
and  Lieutenants  could  ordain  and,  under  his  or  their 
seals,  publish  any  laws  for  raising  money  or  other  pub- 
lic or  private  purpose  with  the  consent  of  the  majority 


154  Chkonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

of  the  freemen  or  of  their  deputies,  whom  Penn  and 
his  heirs  were  authorized  to  assemble  in  such  way  as 
to  them  would  seem  best.  The  laws  were  to  be  con- 
sonant to  reason,  and  as  near  as  conveniently  could  be 
to  those  of  England,  and  were  to  be  transmitted  within 
five  years  after  enactment  to  the  Privy  Council  in  Eng- 
land, and,  sitting  in  Council,  the  King  was  to  have  the 
right  within  six  months  to  declare  the  law  void  as  in- 
consistent with  his  prerogative  or  the  faith  and  alle- 
giance due  to  him.  This  was  liberally  construed  in  prac- 
tice as  to  both  the  time  which  the  English  government 
would  take  in  examination  of  a  law,  and  the  grounds 
on  which  the  Sovereign  would  reject  it:  the  Acts  of 
Assembly  were  often  sent  in  the  first  place  to  the  Lords 
and  others  forming  the  Committee  or  the  Board  for 
the  affairs  of  trade  and  plantations,  and  by  them  re- 
ferred, in  whole  or  for  certain  questions,  to  the  At- 
torney-General or  other  law  officer,  and  the  King's 
decision  was  made  after  the  formal  presentation  to  him, 
upon  the  receipt  of  the  law  officer's  long  delayed 
opinion,  and  upon  the  completion  of  a  representation  by 
the  aforesaid  Committee  or  Board;  and  the  rejection 
would  take  place  for  any  matter  of  form  or  of  policy 
that  did  not  commend  itself  to  these  examiners.  There- 
upon remedial  legislation  would  fail  until  a  new  act 
avoiding  the  obnoxious  phraseology  or  details  could  be 
passed.  There  would  be  uncertainty  for  several  years. 
The  time  consumed  in  communication  in  those  days  be- 
tween the  colony  and  England  was  but  a  part  of  the 
period  during  which  the  colonists  were  obliged  to  wait. 
Penn  told  his  people  once  that  the  laws  lay  unreported 
upon  by  the  Attorney-General  for  want  of  a  big  fee  to 
induce  him  to  take  them  up.  On  the  other  hand,  a  law 
was  to  be  in  operation  until  rejected  by  the  King;  so  the 
local  enacting  powers  took  advantage  of  the  allowance 
of  five  years  for  presenting  an  act,  often  passing  one  to 
be  in  force  for  only  a  year,  or  for  less  than  five  years,  or 


A  Republican  Feudatory.  155 

repealing  and  reenacting  one,  so  that  the  five  years  would 
begin  to  run  from  the  last  reenactment,  and  sometimes, 
when  an  act  had  been  disallowed  by  the  Sovereign  in 
Council,  it  was  passed  afresh,  and  put  in  execution,  and 
the  process  repeated  after  a  later  disallowance. 
Richard  West,  one  of  the  King's  law  officers,  being 
asked  for  his  opinion,  advised  the  Commissioners  for 
Trade  on  March  25,  1719,  that  there  was  nothing  in  the 
Charter  to  Penn  to  prevent  the  reenactment  by  the 
Province  of  disallowed  laws.  West  also  advised  to  the 
effect  that  the  six  months  to  which  the  King  was  limited 
for  examination  and  disallowance  of  laws  were  to  be 
computed  from  the  day  on  which  they  were  delivered  to 
the  Privy  Council,  but  not  from  their  being  delivered  to 
the  Board  of  Trade,  unless  simultaneously  duplicates 
were  delivered  to  the  Privy  Council. 

Upon  emergencies,  when  the  freemen  could  not  be 
gathered  together,  the  Royal  Charter  allowed  Penn  and 
his  heirs  or  their  magistrates  and  officers  to  make  ordi- 
nances for  the  preservation  of  the  peace  and  better 
government  of  the  people,  consonant  to  reason,  and,  as 
near  as  might  be,  agreeable  to  the  laws  of  England,  but 
not  affecting  any  person's  life,  limb,  or  property:  the 
laws  of  England  as  to  felonies,  and  regulating  property 
and  the  descent  of  lands  or  succession  to  goods  and 
chattels,  were  to  remain  in  force  until  altered  by  Penn, 
his  heirs  or  assigns,  and  the  freemen,  as  before  stated. 

Penn  and  his  heirs  were  to  execute  the  laws  made 
with  the  consent  of  the  freemen.  Penn  and  his  heirs 
and  his  or  their  Deputies  and  Lieutenants  had  the 
power  to  appoint  judges,  magistrates,  and  officers,  in- 
cluding those  for  probate  of  wills,  and  granting  of 
administration,  and  to  administer  justice  by  tribunals 
subject  to  an  appeal  to  the  King,  and  also  to  pardon 
all  crimes  except  treason  and  wilful  murder,  and  to 
grant  reprieves  in  those  cases  until  the  King's  pleasure 
were  known.    The  appeal  from  the  decisions  of  courts 


156  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

and  the  reprieve  of  condemned  murderers  seem  never 
to  have  taken  place.  Penn  and  Ms  heirs  and  assigns 
could  divide  the  region  into  counties  &ct.,  incorporate 
cities  and  boroughs,  constitute  fairs  and  markets,  and 
fix  the  only  ports  of  entry. 

There  was  one  power  granted  to  the  Proprietaries 
by  the  King  which  it  seemed  inconsistent  for  a  Quaker 
to  accept,  and  which  had  much  to  do  with  the  willing- 
ness of  the  Founder  and  his  family  to  govern  through 
a  non-Quaker  deputy :  William  Penn  and  his  heirs  and 
assigns,  acting  by  themselves  or  their  captains  or  other 
officers,  were  authorized  to  muster  soldiers,  and  make 
war  on  the  King's  enemies,  and  put  them  to  death  by 
the  laws  of  war,  or  save  them  at  pleasure,  and  act  as 
a  Captain-General.  The  Frame  of  Government  granted 
by  Penn  in  1683,  hereinafter  mentioned,  was  silent  as 
to  the  exercise  of  this  power,  except  in  prohibiting  the 
acting  Governor  from  performing  any  act  relating  to 
"safety"  without  the  consent  of  the  Provincial  Council. 
It  was  apparently  without  waiting  for  such  consent  that 
the  Founder  of  Pennsylvania,  the  most  illustrious  polit- 
ically of  all  Quakers,  ordered  the  fort  at  New  Castle 
to  fire  upon  the  Marylanders  coming  in  force  to  demand 
possession.  He  did  not  stop  to  think  that,  if  bloodshed 
by  princes  was  abominable,  it  seldom  had  less  excuse 
morally  than  his  own  claim  to  the  land  in  question. 

It  should  here  be  said,  throwing  light  on  many  acts 
of  William  Penn,  that  he  was  not  a  rigid  moralist  on 
the  subject  of  war.  He  believed  it  contrary  to  the  spirit 
of  Christianity,  and  he  did  not,  like  some  Quakers, 
make  a  distinction  between  offensive  and  defensive  use 
of  "the  carnal  weapon,"  and  he  sacrificed  bright  pros- 
pects by  withdrawing  from  the  career  of  a  soldier,  and 
he  wrote  about  the  advantages  of  turning  the  popula- 
tion to  the  arts  of  peace ;  but  there  have  not  been  found 
by  the  present  writer  any  utterances  by  Penn  that  kill- 
ing in  battle  is  murder.    Penn  was,  some  will  say,  too 


A  Republican  Feudatoky.  157 

practical,  others  will  say,  too  illogical  to  view  all  par- 
ticipation in  a  national  struggle  as  sinful.  It  might 
almost  be  said  that  his  writings  justify  the  Quakers' 
refusal  to  bear  arms  very  much  on  a  par  with  their 
peculiarity  of  saying  "thee"  and  "thou."  He  con- 
formed to  the  practice  of  his  peaceable  sect,  but  he  did 
not  follow  out  the  theory  as  many  others  did.  He  seems 
to  have  had  no  objection  to  non-Quakers  fighting  for 
him.  His  bringing  the  Delawareans  into  political 
union  with  the  Pennsylvanians  may  have  been  with  the 
astute  policy  of  having  a  "fighting  half"  among  his 
people :  he  subsequently  spoke  regretfully  of  the  loss  of 
this  by  the  disunion. 

This  difference  in  view  between  Penn  and  the  ordi- 
nary Quakers,  as  the  world  associates  the  latter  with 
non-resistance,  brings  up  the  whole  personality,  char- 
acter, abilities,  and  ideas  of  the  first  Proprietary,  of 
which  there  was  some  disclosure  in  the  preceding 
chapters ;  and  an  estimate  of  him  and  his  career,  such 
as  is  generally  given  after  noting  the  death  of  the  per- 
son in  question,  may  be  allowed  at  this  point.  William 
Penn  is  to  be  called  great  without  reference  to  qualities 
or  manifestations  of  the  soul,  but  by  a  mundane  cri- 
terion, viz :  the  affecting  of  the  lives  of  many  others,  a 
criterion  which  does  not  insist  upon  martial  deeds  or 
the  surmounting  of  obstacles,  and  which  does  not  pre- 
suppose any  natural  superiority  of  intellect,  and  which 
considers  the  holding,  however  fortuitous,  of  a  position 
of  power.  Although  the  position  and  achievements  of 
other  persons  have  prevented  Penn  from  being  the 
greatest  man  in  American  history,  he  is  at  least  the 
greatest  among  the  founders  of  English  or  Dutch  col- 
onies. Far  more  than  any  other  of  them,  he  had  an 
importance  in  the  Mother  Country,  independent  of  con- 
nection with  the  New  World,  a  connection  which,  in  his 
case,  has  caused  his  name  to  be  known  where  the  pre- 
lates, jurists,  statesmen,  and  generals,  possibly  even 


158  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Marlborough,  who  were  his  contemporaries  and  ac- 
quaintances, have  been  forgotten. 

While  not  the  founder  of  a  sect  or  of  a  school  of 
thought,  Penn  was  one  of  most  active  missionaries 
and  controversialists  for  a  set  of  religious  ideas  which 
spread  much  more  widely  than  is  popularly  supposed. 
The  actual  result  of  his  labors  in  this  line  can  not  be 
measured.  His  learning  must  have  conveyed  an  im- 
pression in  intellectual  classes  outside  of  the  Society 
of  Friends.  His  defence  at  trial  tended  to  break  down 
repressive  measures  against  the  attendants  of  Meetings. 
There  is  no  point  in  detailing  here  his  work  as  a 
preacher  and  elder :  it  is  of  as  little  general  interest  as 
the  administration  of  a  particular  diocese  by  Wolsey 
or  Richelieu,  with  which  political  ecclesiastics,  in  the 
broad  meaning  of  the  term  "ecclesiastics,"  Penn  is  to 
be  classed.  His  religious  views  are  the  least  striking 
thing  about  him,  except  as  sometimes  denying  what  had 
been  considered  Orthodoxy:  he  generally  used  the  ex- 
pressions common  to  spiritually  minded  Christians. 
His  sufferings  for  conscience  make  no  tragic  scene, 
unpleasant  as  were  expulsion  from  Oxford  and  im- 
prisonments, even  if  short.  Except  opportunities  in 
some  lines,  he  lost  little  by  his  religion.  His  closing 
years  were  pathetic,  but  most  of  his  tribulations  were 
from  political  and  financial  causes. 

The  distinction  of  Penn  is  in  secular  affairs.  While 
he  was  not  a  forceful  ruler,  he  had  remarkable  influence 
over  a  widely  extended  variety  of  human  beings,  and, 
while  in  some  matters,  like  slavery,  he  was  not  ahead 
of  his  time,  he  was  profound  in  establishing  principles 
which  have  come  to  be  recognized  as  the  true  bases 
upon  which  to  build  a  nation.  He  gave  a  code,  and  held 
a  lordship,  in  which  many  abuses  in  English  jurispru- 
dence and  property  rights  were  avoided.  To  be  sure, 
in  the  actions  from  which  he  has  received  most  credit, 
viz:  paying  the  Indians  for  lands  and  allowing  freedom 


A  Republican  Feudatory.  159 

of  worship,  he  was  scarcely  a  free  agent.  It  has  been 
shown  that,  in  buying  instead  of  taking  the  land,  he 
followed  the  advice  of  Bishop  Compton  and  the  practice 
on  the  Delaware.  Some  secret  understanding,  too,  may 
have  bound  Penn,  as  much  as  his  kindheartedness,  to 
leave  the  Roman  Catholics  unmolested;  as  to  Protes- 
tants, the  Church  of  Sweden  could  not  be  uprooted,  the 
Church  of  England  could  not  be  excluded,  and  there 
seemed  no  point,  when  he  had  land  to  sell,  in  refusing 
the  money  of  Presbyterians  and  Baptists.  In  details,  he 
gained  the  Indians'  confidence  and  love.  He  carried 
out  so  well  the  plan  of  giving  all  religious  denomina- 
tions a  fair  chance  that  he  ultimately  failed  in  his 
object,  a  commonwealth  under  the  control  of  Quakers. 
Only  his  care  safeguarded,  and  only  he  could  have 
safeguarded  such  a  colony  as  he  created,  imperilled  as 
it  was  successively;  and  the  advantages  which  he  gave 
to  the  settlers,  combined  with  the  goodness  of  the  soil, 
were  the  reason  that  his  colony  outstripped  others. 
Exactly  what  measures  or  Royal  actions  in  England  are 
to  be  traced  to  him  except  the  sparing  of  certain  lives, 
we  do  not  know:  but  Macaulay  describes  how  this  un- 
titled Quaker  had  the  ear  of  at  least  one  occupant  of  the 
throne.  Harley,  who  became  Prime  Minister,  sought 
through  Penn  the  votes  of  Quakers  at  the  elections. 

The  unfollowed  suggestions  of  Penn  should  give  a 
high  notion  of  his  genius.  In  the  line  of  toleration, 
which  was  with  him  a  theory  of  rightfulness,  and  no 
mere  expedient,  he  suggested  in  James  II 's  reign  a 
division  of  the  royal  patronage  into  thirds  for  the 
Anglican  Churchmen,  the  Roman  Catholics,  and  the 
Dissenters  respectively.  The  share  for  the  King's  co- 
religionists was  too  great,  but  any  distribution  was 
rejected  because  the  Protestants  felt  that  they  were  in 
a  life  and  death  struggle. 

Penn  in  1696  proposed  a  union  of  the  British  colonies 
in  North  America,  submitting  to  the  Commissioners  for 


160  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Trade  and  Plantations  a  scheme,  according  to  which 
two  delegates  from  each  colony,  making  twenty  per- 
sons, would  meet  once  in  two  years  during  peace,  and 
oftener  in  time  of  war,  should  be  under  the  presidency 
of  the  King's  Commissioner,  and  would  adjust  differ- 
ences between  Provinces  in  cases  where  persons  re- 
moved to  avoid  paying  debts,  where  offenders  fled 
justice,  of  injuries  in  the  matter  of  commerce,  and  of 
ways  and  means  to  support  safety  against  public  ene- 
mies, fixing  the  quotas  of  men  and  expense,  and  the 
King's  Commissioner  would  be  General  or  Chief  Com- 
mander of  the  forces  formed  of  the  quotas.  Shall  we 
call  Penn  the  projector  of  the  United  States  Senate? 

His  greatest  dream — to  some  extent  materialized  in 
the  Hague  Tribunal,  and  essentially  what  we  have 
heard  suggested  very  recently — was  a  Parliament,  or 
Diet,  of  Europe,  to  which  disputes  between  the  Powers 
were  to  be  submitted,  and  the  decisions  of  which  were 
to  be  enforced  by  the  other  Powers.  Thus  war  would 
be  abolished,  except  as  between  the  general  police  force 
and  a  delinquent.  Co-operation  of  this  kind  for  this 
purpose  had  been  suggested  previously — see  Thomas 
Willing  Balch's  pamphlet  on  Emeric  Cruce;  and  it  is 
too  much  to  claim  that  such  a  reader  as  Penn  was 
unaware  of  this.  His  own  suggestion  appeared,  and 
in  detail,  in  1695  in  his  Essay  towards  the  Present  and 
Future  Peace  of  Europe.  The  representation  in  the 
Parliament  was  to  be  based  upon  a  census  of  the  wealth 
of  the  countries  represented,  and  it  is  interesting  as 
showing  the  relative  importance  of  those  countries  that 
he  tentatively  supposed  that  the  Empire  of  Germany 
would  have  12  members,  France  10,  Spain  10,  Italy 
' 'which  comes  to  France"  8,  England  6,  Portugal  3, 
Sweden  4,  Denmark  3,  Poland  4,  Venice  3,  the  Seven 
Provinces  of  United  Netherlands  4,  the  Thirteen  Swiss 
Cantons  "and  little  neighbouring  sovereignties"  2,  and 
the  Dukedom  of  Holstein  and  Courland  1;  and  if  Tur- 


A  Republican  Feudatory.  161 

key  and  Muscovy  were  taken  in,  they  each  would  have 
10.  The  representatives  were  to  sit  in  a  circular 
chamber,  and  the  presidency  should  rotate,  to  preserve 
equality.  The  decision  was  to  be  by  a  three  fourths 
vote  or  at  least  seven  more  than  half.  The  vote  was 
to  be  by  ballot,  that  no  potentate  inclining  to  resort  to 
bribery  could  be  sure  of  getting  a  bribed  member's  vote ! 
No  power  could  refuse  to  submit  to  this  arbitration, 
and,  if  any  were  maintaining  an  army  dangerous  to  the 
others,  the  question  could  be  raised,  and  the  necessary 
reduction  of  the  army  enforced. 

Penn  urged  free  trade  between  all  the  colonies,  in 
connection  with  which  his  letter  to  the  Commissioners 
for  Trade  &ct.  written  in  1700  speaks  against  the  law 
about  transporting  wool  from  one  to  another,  and  tells 
how  it  was  avoided  by  the  purchasing  of  a  thousand 
sheep  with  the  wool  on,  and  the  shearing  of  them  in  the 
province  needing  the  wool,  after  which  the  sheep  were 
sold.  The  matter  had  little  reference  to  Pennsylvania, 
where,  there  being  more  money  than  elsewhere  in 
British  North  America  except  Boston  and  New  York, 
the  people  were  already  too  luxurious  to  be  satisfied 
with  American  wool  and  woolen  goods. 

In  September,  1700,  Penn,  as  Governor  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, met  in  New  York  Gov.  Nicholson  of  Maryland, 
Gov.  Hamilton  of  New  Jersey,  and  the  Earl  of  Bello- 
mont,  who  was  Gov.  of  New  York,  Massachusetts,  &ct. 
Penn  then  suggested  as  desirable  in  the  colonies :  1st, 
one  standard  for  foreign  coin,  so  that  Boston  would 
not  call  a  piece  of  eight — i.e.  a  Spanish  "dollar" — six 
shillings,  when  New  York  called  it  six  shillings  nine 
pence,  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania  called  it  seven 
shillings  eight  pence,  Maryland,  four  shillings  six  pence, 
and  Virginia  five  shillings ;  2nd,  a  mint  for  small  silver 
to  the  denomination  of  six  pence  in  the  City  of  New 
York ;  3rd,  an  impost  in  England  on  foreign  timber,  to 
encourage  the  exportation  of  timber  from  the  colonies ; 

li 


162  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

4th,  such  adjustment  of  the  boundary  with  the  French 
on  the  north  as  would  give  the  English  the  south  side 
of  the  St.  Lawrence  and  of  the  Lakes;  5th,  for  pre- 
vention of  runaways,  rovers,  and  fraudulent  debtors 
coming  from  one  province  to  another  for  shelter,  all 
provinces  to  make  a  uniform  law  with  the  same  re- 
strictions and  penalties;  6th,  foreigners  coming  daily, 
especially  Dutch,  Swedes,  and  French,  to  inhabit  the 
colonies,  a  general  naturalization  law  passed  in  Eng- 
land to  allow  such  of  them  as  declared  freemen  by  Act 
of  Provincial  Assembly  to  enjoy  all  the  rights  and 
liberties  of  English  subjects,  except  being  masters  or 
commanders  of  vessels ;  7th,  no  appeal  to  England  under 
£300;  8th,  the  allowance  of  expenses  and  part  of  the 
prey  to  those  capturing  pirates.  The  7th  suggestion 
was  or  had  been  adopted.  The  6th  was  observed  as 
calculated  to  people  Penn's  own  dominion. 

If,  to  have  a  man's  ability  recognized,  it  must  be 
shown  that  he  labored  under  disadvantages,  the  reader 
will  see  that  Penn  had  a  number ;  and  when  there  is  an 
occasion  to  criticize  his  later  acts,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  he  was  always  short  of  money. 

The  character  of  William  Penn,  as  we  see  him  turn 
from  a  Moses  into  a  William  the  Conqueror,  saving,  to 
be  sure,  the  bloody  war,  and,  finally,  into  a  King  John 
Lackland,  is  the  most  interesting  one  made  prominent 
by  the  Colonial  history  of  the  original  United  States: 
other  characters,  which,  to  be  sure,  have  not  been  ques- 
tioned like  Penn's,  have  been  exhibited  as  simple  and 
solid  specimens  of  good  or  bad  qualities  with  some  ex- 
traneous setting,  which  is  negligible;  but  Penn's  char- 
acter requires  study  because  of  many  sides,  complexity, 
and  contradictions.  Whatever  may  surprise  those  look- 
ing for  a  maltreated  innocent,  his  piety  was  sincere.  He 
had,  indeed,  the  Christian  virtues  of  forgiveness  and 
taking  trouble  for  others  to  a  degree  that  made  him 
friends   even   among   former   enemies.     Becoming   a 


A  Republican  Feudatory.  163 

preacher,  he  remained,  when  required  to  meet  or  corre- 
spond with  men  highly  placed,  a  gentleman,  dignified, 
courteous,  punctilious,  although  independent  of  his 
class  in  opinion,  and  dressed  in  a  different  fashion.  In 
those  days  of  dying  feudalism  and  young  and  lusty 
''graft,"  an  "esquire,"  as  a  knight's  eldest  son  was 
called,  a  lesser  noble,  as  he  was  classed  in  other  coun- 
tries, had  in  England  prerogative,  leadership,  the  right 
to  other  men's  service,  &ct. ;  and  we  find  Penn,  as 
troubles  beset  him,  disinclined  to  forego,  or  endeavor- 
ing to  resume  this.  Like  a  feudal  baron,  he  asked  his 
people  to  come  to  his  financial  assistance.  His  religious 
career  shows  activity,  determination,  and  at  last  a 
settled  responsiveness  to  the  call  to  seriousness.  There 
had  been  an  interval  of  gaiety  and  pleasure,  to  use  no 
harsher  word :  but  there  has  been  nothing  found  in  his 
private  life  after  he  had  been  several  years  in  the 
Society  of  Friends  to  brand  him  a  hypocrite.  As  to 
financial  transactions  with  individuals,  could  the  acts 
and  plans  of  all  men  be  disclosed  as  we  are  able  to  see 
Penn's  in  the  records  and  in  his  confidential  letters,  it 
is  doubtful  whether  the  acts  and  plans  of  many  would 
look  as  clean.  No  one  who  reads  the  list  of  articles 
which  Penn  or  his  agents  gave  to  the  Indians  will  echo 
any  flippant  remark  that  he  got  Pennsylvania  from 
them  for  a  few  beads.  In  public  affairs,  rather  than 
an  ideal  Quaker,  he  was  something  like  a  Stuart  king, 
due  allowances  being  made  for  difference  in  sphere, 
power,  and  surrounding  sentiment.  Starting  with  the 
sagacity  of  James  I  of  England  and  the  early  leaning 
of  him  and  his  three  successors  to  religious  toleration 
and  the  disinclination  of  nearly  all  of  them  to  war, 
Penn  kept  unworthy  or  unpopular  men  in  office,  strove 
for  taxes,  contributions,  and  loans,  sought  to  change 
what  had  been  agreed  upon,  and  thought  himself  the 
Lord's  chosen  vessel.  As  a  sufferer  for  ecclesiastical 
ideas,   Penn  would  be   too   much  honored  by  being 


164  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

classed  with  Charles  I,  who  lost  his  life,  or  James  II, 
who  lost  his  crown.  Yet  if  giving  up  much  for  one's 
religion  entitles  to  canonization,  Perm  has  claims.  He 
sacrificed,  along  with  his  ease  and  comfort,  a  greater 
position  in  his  day  than  that  of  a  mere  English  gentle- 
man. Had  he  accepted  the  opinions  of  the  majority,  his 
abilities  might  have  led  him  to  the  highest  offices.  There 
is  a  tradition  that  the  Admiral,  owing  to  his  son's  re- 
ligion, declined  a  title  of  nobility,  that  of  Viscount 
Weymouth  being  mentioned.  Succeeding  to  this,  his  son 
would  no  doubt  have  risen  to  a  higher  title :  but,  outside 
of  the  peerage,  with  the  capacity  he  had  shown  as  a 
soldier,  a  law  student,  a  politician,  a  scholar,  and  a 
preacher,  and  with  the  "back  door"  influence  he  pos- 
sessed to  give  him  a  start,  it  would  be  too  much  to  say 
that  a  great  military  command,  the  lord  chancellorship, 
a  seat  in  the  King's  Cabinet,  or  an  archbishopric  would 
have  been  beyond  his  reach.  Living  in  a  corrupt  and 
bellicose  age,  he  was  constrained  to  follow  paths  for 
the  carrying  out  of  his  projects,  or  for  his  own  safety, 
which  have  been  thought  dark  and  dirty  by  good  people 
not  so  tempted.  Intimacy  with  a  Roman  Catholic  king 
caused  Penn  to  be  suspected  of  being  a  Jesuit,  and, 
although  he  was  not  of  Loyola's  Society,  the  reader 
has  seen  an  attitude  taken  in  the  matter  of  the  bound- 
ary explicable  only  as  unscrupulousness  for  the  attain- 
ment of  a  noble  and,  in  Penn's  thought,  a  holy  end. 

Following  the  career  which  he  chose,  or  felt  called 
upon  to  follow — for  he  believed  himself  Divinely  sent 
forth — and  meeting  the  obstacles  which  nature,  society, 
and  church  presented,  and  making  the  false  steps  which 
we  can  see,  he  may  be  summarized  as  more  of  a  states- 
man than  a  saint,  a  better  preacher  than  a  business 
man,  a  rather  weak  ruler,  but,  considering  the  people  he 
had  to  deal  with,  including  kings,  Quakers,  and  Indians, 
and  his  general  success,  we  ought  finally  to  say,  the 
greatest  of  the  long  line  of  Pennsylvania  politicians. 


A  Republican  Feudatory.  165 

We  can  not  call  him  self-seeking:  he  seems  actuated, 
when  asking  for  power  and  money,  by  a  sense  of  duty 
to  others.  The  reader  of  history  must  take  to  himself 
the  Psalmist's  address  to  the  Deity: 

"If  thou  .  .  .  wilt  be  extreme  to  mark 
what  is   done   amiss,     .     .     .     who   may 

abide  it  ?  "  — Prayer  Book  version  of  the  De  Profundis. 

Later  chapters  will  show  how  the  veto  power  given 
to  Penn  and  his  heirs  and  their  Deputies  and  Lieu- 
tenants was  used  as  a  weapon  to  protect  the  Proprie- 
tary interests,  and  how  the  patronage  became  an  asset 
of  commercial  value,  both  of  which  effects  King  Charles 
II  intended  in  giving  the  Charter :  but  in  this  chapter 
the  reader  will  see  a  great  exhibition  of  altruism,  an 
abnegation  of  power  because  of  belief  in  human  rights, 
or  of  desire  to  do  kindness,  and  somewhat  because  of 
broadminded  recognition  of  what  would  make  a  col- 
onial project  attractive.  Penn,  after  closer  acquain- 
tance with  kings,  found  monarchy  practicable,  thought 
Charles  II  a  great  man,  saw  what  was  good  in  James 
II,  advised  the  Crown's  ministers,  and  finally  acted  as 
a  petty  duke  of  an  empire :  but  before  all  this,  Penn  had 
accepted  Republican  theories.  At  the  end  of  1680,  he 
took  the  power  in  legislation  and  as  executive  with  the 
purpose  of  making  it,  or  soon  afterwards  he  chose  to 
make  it,  a  conduit  pipe  through  which  his  colonists 
would  govern  themselves.  It  seems  to  have  been  politi- 
cally necessary  to  make  the  government  seigniorial  in 
form.  Charles  II  scarcely  intended  to  have  a  republic 
set  up.  He  felt  that  he  knew  William  Penn,  and  was 
willing  to  confide  a  territory  to  his  discretion,  the  free- 
men's consent  being  necessary  for  taxes  and  new  laws. 
Early  Penn  must  have  determined  to  curb  his  own  power. 
On  2mo.  12,  1681,  thirty-nine  days  after  the  date  of  the 
King's  letters  patent,  Penn  expressed  to  Robert  Turner 
and  others  his  intention:  "For  the  matter  of  liberty 
and  privilege,  I  promise  that  which  is  extraordinary, 


166  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

and  to  leave  myself  and  successors  no  power  of  doing 
mischief,  that  the  will  of  one  man  may  not  hinder  the 
good  of  an  whole  country.  But  to  publish  these  things 
now,  and  here,  as  matters  stand,  would  not  be  wise; 
and  I  am  advised  to  reserve  that  till  I  come  there. 
.  .  .  let  Friends  know  it,  as  you  are  free."  The 
letter  is  printed  in  Samuel  M.  Janney's  Life  of  William 
Penn.  The  postscript  lets  us  infer  that  he  had  similarly 
expressed  himself  to  "the  most  eminent  Friends  here- 
away," i.e.  about  London.  Perhaps  the  representa- 
tions of  possible  settlers  may  have  carried  him  later 
further  than  he  first  intended.  Rather  to  excuse  him, 
Markham  wrote  to  Fletcher  in  1696  that  Penn  was 
obliged  to  grant  the  Charter  of  1683,  or,  in  other  words, 
the  popular  features  which  were  copied  into  it  from 
the  charter  of  1682,  being  compelled  by  "friends"— 
perhaps  Markham  meant  Quakers — who,  unless  they 
had  received  all  they  demanded,  would  not  have  come  to 
the  country.  This  corroborates  the  Pennsylvania  As- 
sembly as  to  the  object  in  coming  of  such  substantial 
people  as  the  English  settlers  of  the  Province,  viz :  the 
enjoyment  of  privileges  which  they  could  not  have  at 
home. 

The  Charter  dated  2mo.  (April)  25,  1682,  prescribing 
a  form  of  government,  was  very  much  a  covenant  that 
Penn  and  his  heirs  and  assigns  would  hold  their  author- 
ity to  and  for  the  use  of  a  democracy.  As  near  as 
possible,  there  was  to  be  direct  legislation.  The  free- 
men were  to  send  seventy-two  of  the  small  number 
which  there  would  be  of  them  to  a  Provincial  Council, 
which,  among  other  powers,  had  the  origination  of  all 
laws :  all  the  freemen  were  to  appear  in  their  own  per- 
sons on  2mo.  20,  1683,  and  pass  or  reject  said  laws; 
afterwards  the  freemen  were  annually,  on  the  20th  of 
12th  month,  to  choose  representatives  not  exceeding 
two  hundred,  but  as  the  population  increased,  then  up 
to  five  hundred,  to  form  the  General  Assembly,   or 


A  Republican  Feudatoby.  167 

lower  house  of  the  legislature.    All  that  the  Governor, 
whether  the  Proprietary  or  his  deputy,  was  to  have, 
was  a  vote  equal  to  three  members  in  the  Council. 
The  Council  was  joined  with  the  Proprietary  in  the 
executive    functions,    giving    judgment    on    criminals 
impeached,  settling  ports,  &ct.,  the  Governor  or  his 
deputy  having  always  the  treble  vote ;  a  small  return, 
surely,  for  the  surrender  of  power,  a  small  recognition 
of  Penn's  or  his  appointee's  superior  wisdom.     Two 
thirds  of  the  whole  Council  were  to  be  the  quorum  in 
important  matters,  and  the  consent  of  two  thirds  of 
such  quorum  was  to  be  necessary.  Three  more  than  said 
two  thirds  thus  could  compel  action  against  the  Gov- 
ernor's wishes.    Even  in  the  appointment  of  Judges, 
while  Penn  himself  picked  out  the  first  ones,  and  they 
were  to  serve  as  long  as  they  behaved  well,  the  suc- 
cessors,  as  well   as   the   successors   of  the   similarly 
appointed  County  Treasurers  and  Master  of  the  Rolls, 
were  to  be  selected  by  the  acting  Governor  from  two 
persons  nominated  by  the  Council.    The  first  Sheriffs, 
Justices  of  the  Peace,  and  Coroners  were  also  picked  out 
by  Penn.    Their  successors  were  to  be  selected  by  the 
acting  Governor  from  a  double  number  of  persons 
nominated  by  the  freemen  in  the  County  Courts  when 
erected,  and  by  the  Assembly  until  the  erection  of  such 
Courts.    The  Governor's  consent,  as  well  as  the  consent 
of  six  sevenths  of  the  Council  and  the  Assembly,  was 
necessary  to  change  the  Charter. 

This  system  of  government  was  accepted  in  the  first 
of  a  series  of  laws  agreed  upon  on  May  5,  1682,  by 
certain  persons,  then  in  England,  who  had  bought  lands 
from  Penn,  the  second  law  declaring  practically  all 
purchasers,  renters,  and  tax  payers  to  be  freemen.  By 
another  of  these  laws,  no  tax,  custom,  or  contribution 
was  to  be  levied  upon  or  paid  by  any  of  the  people  ex- 
cept by  a  law  made  for  that  purpose,  and  when  this  was 
reenacted  at  Chester,  Pennsylvania,  it  was  added  that 


168  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

no  tax  should  continue  longer  than  one  year.  These 
Laws  Agreed  upon  in  England  were  to  be  changed  only 
by  the  same  consent  as  in  the  case  of  the  Frame  of  Gov- 
ernment. 

As  a  preliminary  to  putting  in  force  this  Charter, 
William  Penn,  having  received  title,  such  as  it  was,  to 
what  is  now  called  Delaware,  and,  by  virtue  of  the 
assignment  of  the  Duke  of  York's  powers,  taken  the 
designation  of  Governor  of  those  Territories,  issued 
writs  for  the  choosing  of  seven  deputies  from  each  of 
the  three  counties  into  which  the  same  had  been  divided, 
New  Castle,  St.  Jones,  and  Deal,  to  meet  the  freemen 
from  the  Pennsylvania  counties  of  Philadelphia,  Bucks, 
and  Chester  on  Dec.  6,  1682,  for  the  common  good  of 
the  inhabitants  of  both  the  Province  and  Territories. 
By  the  Assembly  of  these  deputies,  the  laws  and  privi- 
leges of  the  inhabitants  of  Pennsylvania  were  extended 
to  the  inhabitants  of  the  Territories,  as  stated  in  the 
chapter  on  the  Ascertainment  of  the  Southern  Bound- 
ary. An  Act  of  Naturalization,  passed  at  the  same 
meeting,  took  into  the  category  of  freemen  all  foreign- 
ers inhabiting  either  region  holding  land  in  fee  in  free- 
hold who  within  three  months  thereafter  promised  on 
record  in  the  County  Court  fidelity  and  allegiance  to  the 
King  of  England  and  fidelity  and  obedience  to  the 
Proprietary.  A  Great  Law  of  many  chapters,  enacting, 
with  or  without  modifications,  or  supplanting,  the  laws 
agreed  upon  in  England,  was  also  passed  in  this  pre- 
liminary Assembly,  or,  more  correctly  speaking,  Con- 
gress. By  Chapter  LVII,  it  was  made  necessary  that 
the  land  to  qualify  for  voting  or  holding  office  should 
be  not  merely  unlocated  acres,  but  such  as  had  been 
seated,  a  freeman  being  defined  thus :  an  inhabitant 
who  had  purchased  and  seated  one  hundred  acres,  a 
person  who  had  paid  his  passage,  and  taken  up  one 
hundred  acres  at  Id.  per  A.,  and  seated  the  same,  a 
person  who,  formerly  a  servant  or  bondsman,  had  be- 


A  Republican  Feudatory.  169 

come  free  of  his  service,  and  taken  up  and  seated  50  A., 
or  a  resident  paying  scot  or  lot  to  the  government.  In 
these  general  terms,  it  might  be  supposed  that  women 
were  included,  but  probably  this  was  never  contended. 
When  Penn  attempted  to  set  up  the  governmental 
machinery  devised,  most  of  the  people  of  both  Province 
and  Territories,  busy  with  private  concerns,  seem,  even 
the  Quakers,  to  have  lost  political  ambition,  objecting 
to  forsaking  their  habitations  to  make  rules,  and  not 
well  able  to  spare  what  money  they  would  be  obliged 
to  spend  or  lose  in  doing  so:  so  those  meeting  on  the 
20th  of  12th  month  (February),  1682-3,  to  elect  the  first 
members  of  the  Provincial  Council,  declared  that  the 
twelve  men  then  chosen  from  each  county  were  enough 
to  attend  to  public  business,  and  accordingly  petitioned 
that  three  of  the  twelve  be  accepted  as  Councillors  for 
one,  two,  and  three  years  respectively,  and  the  nine 
others  stand  for  the  whole  body  of  freemen  of  their 
county  for  the  first  regular  General  Assembly.  The 
nine  from  each  county  meeting  at  the  same  time  as  the 
Council,  the  proposition  was  agreed  to,  and  was  con- 
firmed in  an  Act  of  Settlement,  with  a  promise  by  the 
freemen  to  do  nothing  in  prejudice  to  the  just  rights 
of  William  Penn  and  his  heirs  and  successors,  who 
were  thereby  acknowledged  true  and  rightful  Proprie- 
taries and  Governors  of  the  Province  and  Territories. 
By  this  Assembly,  the  laws  made  in  the  preceding  De- 
cember at  Chester  were  ordered  to  stand  in  force  until 
the  end  of  the  first  session  of  the  next  Assembly,  except 
as  altered  by  a  number  of  laws  at  this  session  passed. 
Among  these  was  an  act  of  indemnity  for  offences  pre- 
viously committed,  and  a  specification  that  certain  laws 
be  fundamental,  i.e.  not  to  be  altered,  diminished,  or  re- 
pealed without  the  consent  of  the  Governor,  his  heirs  or 
assigns  and  six  sevenths  of  the  freemen  in  Council  and 
Assembly  met.  All  laws  passed  at  this  session,  except 
that  of  indemnity,  and  that  prescribing  the  fundamen- 


170  Chkonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

tals,  were  to  continue  in  force  until  the  publication  of 
the  laws  of  the  first  session  of  the  next  Assembly. 

On  2mo.  2,  1683,  with  the  unanimous  consent  of  these 
representatives  of  the  people,  a  new  charter  was  substi- 
tuted, whereby  the  freemen  of  each  county  were  to 
elect,  on  the  10th  day  of  every  first  month  thereafter, 
one  Councillor  to  serve  for  three  years,  and  six  As- 
semblymen to  serve  for  one  year,  the  treble  vote  was 
not  given  to  the  acting  Governor,  and  he  was  prohibited 
from  performing  any  act  of  state  relating  to  justice, 
trade,  treasury,  or  safety,  without  the  consent  of  the 
Council,  but,  as  a  sort  of  compensation  for  some  of  the 
powers  taken  from  William  Penn,  there  was  a  post- 
ponement until  after  his  death  of  the  Provincial  Coun- 
cil's participation  with  the  acting  Governor  in  the  erec- 
tion of  courts,  and  of  the  Council's  nomination  to  him 
for  Judges,  Treasurers,  and  Masters  of  the  Rolls,  and  of 
the  Assembly's  annual  nomination  of  Sheriffs,  Justices, 
and  Coroners.  As  in  the  former  charter,  the  Governor 
and  Council  had  the  preparation  of  all  laws :  the  quorum 
of  the  Council  in  this  and  certain  other  business  was 
two  thirds,  and  a  two  thirds  vote  of  that  quorum  was 
required.  The  Assembly  had  in  legislation  mere  assent 
or  rejection,  for  which,  as  well  as  the  nomination  of 
Sheriffs,  Justices  of  the  Peace,  and  Coroners  for  ap- 
pointment by  the  Governor,  a  quorum  of  two  thirds  was 
necessary.  The  Assembly  had  the  power  of  impeach- 
ment; the  Provincial  Council,  the  trial  of  the  officials 
impeached. 

In  Penn's  letter  of  12mo.  1,  1686,  hereafter  men- 
tioned, when  he  was  much  irritated,  particularly  by  the 
Councillors'  neglect  to  attend  the  meetings  of  the  Coun- 
cil, he  threatened,  as  if  he  were  a  modern  Czar,  to 
dissolve  the  Frame  of  Government.  Nevertheless,  it 
remained  the  written  Constitution  of  Pennsylvania  and 
Delaware  until  April,  1693,  and,  after  an  interim  of 
about  two  years,  may  be  deemed  to  have  continued  such 


A  Eepublican  Feudatory.  171 

until  1700,  although  for  a  time  the  tentative  Frame  of 
1696  was  followed. 

Before  we  enter  upon  the  story  of  administration, 
there  should  be  noted  certain  of  the  Laws  Agreed  upon 
in  England  as  early  enacted  and  made  fundamental, 
establishing  the  principles  and  judicial  arrangements 
long  followed  in  the  colony.  Carrying  out  Penn's  great 
idea,  his  dominion  was  made  a  place  of  opportunity  for 
the  ecclesiastically  oppressed.  No  person  who  con- 
fessed one  Almighty  God  to  be  creator,  upholder,  and 
ruler  of  the  world,  and  professed  to  be  obliged  in  con- 
science to  live  peaceably  and  justly  in  civil  society,  was 
to  be  in  any  way  molested  or  prejudiced  for  religious 
persuasion  or  practice,  or  to  be  obliged  to  frequent  or 
maintain  any  religious  worship,  place,  or  ministry ;  any 
person  abusing  or  deriding  another  for  different  per- 
suasion or  practice  in  religion  being  punishable  as  a 
disturber  of  the  peace ;  but  all  persons  were  to  abstain 
from  labor  on  the  Lord's  day,  and  not  to  swear  or  curse 
in  conversation,  and  not  tc  speak  loosely  and  profanely 
of  Almighty  God,  Christ  Jesus,  the  Holy  Ghost,  or  the 
Scriptures  of  truth :  the  officers  under  the  government, 
the  members  of  Council  and  Assembly,  and  all  who  had 
a  right  to  elect  such  members,  were  to  be  such  as  pro- 
fessed faith  in  Jesus  Christ  "to  be  the  son  of  God,  the 
Saviour  of  the  world."  In  contrast  to  the  breadth  of 
this  eligibility,  the  tests  required  in  England,  and  in- 
sisted upon  by  the  opponents  of  James  II,  included,  as 
to  members  of  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  by  statute 
of  30  Car.  II  st.  2:  "I  do  solemnly  and  sincerely  in  the 
presence  of  God  profess,  testify,  and  declare  that  I  do 
believe  that  in  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  there 
is  not  any  transubstantiation  of  the  elements  of  bread 
and  wine  into  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ  at  or  after 
the  consecration  thereof  by  any  person  whatsoever; 
and  that  the  invocation  or  adoration  of  the  Virgin 
Mary  or  any  other  saint,  and  the  sacrifice  of  the  Mass, 


172  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

as  they  are  now  used  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  are  super- 
stitious and  idolatrous."  When,  by  the  English  act  of 
1  W.  &  M.,  c.  18,  Dissenters  were  tolerated,  such  as 
would  not  take  an  oath  were  required,  besides  making 
the  aforesaid  declaration,  to  profess  faith  in  the  Trinity, 
and  to  acknowledge  the  Holy  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  to  be  given  by  divine  inspiration. 
Under  the  laws  passed  at  the  inauguration  of  Penn's 
government,  process  in  civil  actions  was  to  be  by 
summons  on  the  complainant  declaring  that  he  believed 
his  cause  just;  judgment  was  to  be  given  for  want  of 
an  appearance.  Certain  rights  to  bail  and  trial  upon 
criminal  accusations  were  established.  Court  proceed- 
ings were  to  be  in  English.  As  dictated  by  Quaker 
scruples,  witnesses  from  the  first  were  to  qualify  simply 
by  solemnly  promising  to  speak  the  truth,  the  whole 
truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth.  This  method  seems  to 
have  been  observed  by  non-Quakers  and  Quakers  alike 
until  the  coming  of  Fletcher.  He  reenacted  it,  changing 
the  word  "shall"  to  "may,"  thus  permitting  the 
Quakers  and  Mennonites  to  give  testimony  in  that  way, 
but  restoring  apparently  the  use  of  the  oath  by  Swedes 
and  the  few  others  who  preferred  it.  Not  until  1696 
could  testimony  without  oath  be  accepted  in  England: 
the  Statute  of  7  &  8  Wm.  Ill,  c.  34,  permitting  this,  ex- 
pressly limited  it  to  civil  actions.  Even  in  such  matters, 
there  was  a  distinction  between  the  early  Pennsylvania 
law  and  the  English  statute,  for,  by  the  latter,  the 
affirmant  was  obliged  to  acknowledge  that  he  spoke  "in 
the  presence  of  Almighty  God  the  witness  of  the  truth 
of  what  I  say. ' ' 

The  laws  made  before  and  for  some  time  after  2mo. 
2,  1683,  were  not  laid  before  the  King,  but,  apparently 
treated  as  tentative  only,  were  usually  reenacted  with 
amendments  at  each  Assembly,  to  stand  in  force  until 
the  end  or  twenty  days  after  the  end  of  the  first  session 
of  the  next  Assembly.    A  short  period  to  permit  pub- 


A  Kepublican  Feudatory.  173 

lication,  ultimately  fixed  at  twenty  days,  after  the  end 
of  the  Assembly  was  allowed  before  new  laws  went 
into  effect.  The  Assembly  of  1686  and  that  of  1687 
failed  to  continue  the  laws  or  enact  new  ones. 

Penn  claimed  one  strange  right,  not  meeting  with 
expostulation  in  the  early  days,  but  declared  unfounded 
by  lawyers  in  later  times.  By  the  letter  of  12,  1,  1686, 
before  mentioned,  of  which  Edward  Blackfan  was 
bearer,  Penn  directed  those  named  in  the  commission 
mentioned  in  the  letter,  to  declare  to  the  Assembly  his 
abrogation  of  everything  done  since  his  leaving,  and 
of  all  the  laws  except  the  fundamentals,  and  then  to 
dismiss  the  Assembly,  and  call  one  again,  and  pass  the 
laws  afresh  with  any  alterations.  He  also  enclosed  a 
proclamation  exercising  the  power  in  the  King's 
Charter  of  making  ordinances.  These  instructions  seem 
to  have  been  disregarded,  owing  to  the  non-arrival  of 
the  commission  spoken  of;  but,  in  a  letter  dated  4mo. 
6,  1687,  they  were  inferentially  confirmed  by  the  Pro- 
prietary's remark  that  he  had  little  more  to  say  than 
he  had  communicated  of  his  mind  already  "  in  a  former 
letter  by  Edward  Blackfan. ' '  In  1688,  a  law  was  passed 
that  all  the  laws  formerly  passed  continue  in  force  until 
twenty  days  after  the  end  of  the  first  session  of  the 
next  Assembly,  and  no  longer,  except  the  fundamental 
laws,  and  certain  additional  laws  were  passed  to  last 
during  the  same  or  a  shorter  time. 

The  first  visit  of  the  Founder  of  Pennsylvania  to  the 
shores  of  the  Delaware  lasted  twenty-one  months  and 
a  half,  and  the  only  other  visit  twenty-three  months. 
During  the  ninety  and  more  years  of  rule  by  the  Penns 
except  during  those  visits,  and  even  during  the  visits 
of  the  Founder's  sons,  John  and  Thomas,  the  power  left 
by  the  subsisting  frame  of  government  to  the  chief 
executive  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Council  of  the 
Province  or  of  Commissioners  or  of  a  Deputy  with  the 
title  of  Lieutenant-Governor  selected  bv  the  Governor- 


174  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

in-Chief.  The  Lieutenant-Governors  were  seldom  equal 
to  the  requirements  of  the  position,  and  were  never  fully 
empowered  to  speak  for  their  principals :  so,  even  when 
the  person  holding  the  Proprietaryship  was  not  missed 
for  his  abilities,  there  was  always  a  great  disadvantage 
in  his  being  three  thousand  miles  away. 

Under  date  of  6mo.  7(f),  1684,  William  Penn,  saying 
that  he  was  "not  knowing  how  it  would  please  God  to 
deal  with  him  on  the  voyage"  back  to  England,  ap- 
pointed Thomas  Lloyd,  James  Harrison,  and  John 
Simcock,  of  whom  the  first  named  was  to  preside, 
guardians  of  the  heir,  Springett  Penn,  and,  if  he  died 
under  age,  then  of  his  successor,  until  of  age,  the  sur- 
viving guardians  to  fill  any  vacancy  happening  by  the 
death  of  a  guardian. 

At  the  end  of  William  Penn's  first  visit,  he  left  the 
whole  Provincial  Council  to  act  in  his  place,  excepting, 
however,  in  his  commission  to  the  body,  which  was 
read  on  6mo.  18,  1684,  any  power  to  make  laws  dimin- 
ishing his  interest.  Thomas  Lloyd  was  made  President. 
He  also  was  appointed  by  Penn  Master  of  the  Rolls 
and  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal  during  good  behavior. 
Probably  not  paternally  related  to  David  Lloyd,  spoken 
of  in  a  preceding  chapter  as  a  lawyer,  who  had  not  yet 
arrived  in  the  province,  Thomas  Lloyd  was  a  younger 
brother  of  Charles  Lloyd  of  Dolobran  in  Wales,  one  of 
the  few  gentlemen  of  landed  estate  who  joined  the  So- 
ciety of  Friends.  Thomas  had  matriculated  at  Oxford, 
and  was  probably  the  person  of  the  name  at  Jesus 
College,  who  was  graduated  B.  A.  on  Jany.  29,  1661. 
The  President  had  practised  medicine  in  England,  and 
did  so  somewhat  in  America.  To  the  position  accorded 
to  him  of  a  minister  among  Friends,  he  had  the 
further  claim  upon  their  consideration  of  having  lain 
in  prison  many  years  for  the  cause,  and  he  was  credited 
with  some  share  in  bringing  about  the  repeal  of  the 
ancient  law  for  burning  heretics,  with  the  execution  of 


A  Republican  Feudatory.  175 

which  law  some  persons  had  threatened  the  Quakers. 
When  Lloyd's  term  as  a  Councillor  was  about  to  expire, 
Penn  signed  a  commission  authorizing  Lloyd,  Dr. 
Nicholas  More  (before  mentioned  as  owning  10,000 
acres),  James  Claypoole  (brother  of  Oliver  Cromwell's 
son-in-law),  Robert  Turner  (before  mentioned),  and 
John  Eckley,  under  the  title  of  Commissioners  of  State, 
or  any  three  of  them,  to  represent  the  Governor-in- 
Chief,  but  reserving  to  himself  the  confirmation  of  what 
they  might  do,  as  well  as  his  peculiar  royalties  and  ad- 
vantages. This  was  the  commission,  which  seems  never 
to  have  arrived,  or  at  least  not  until  superseded,  as 
mentioned  in  Penn's  letter  dated  12mo.  1, 1686.  A  com- 
mission of  later  date  appointed  as  Deputy  or  Lieutenant 
of  the  Proprietary :  Lloyd,  Turner,  Arthur  Cooke,  John 
Simcock  (name  eventually  so  spelt,  although  one  signa- 
ture is  Simcocks),  and  Eckley  or  any  three  of  them. 
These  were  serving  at  the  arrival  of  Blackwell.  When 
Penn  was  looking  about  for  somebody  to  make  sole 
Deputy  in  their  stead,  Lloyd  and  other  Quakers  de- 
clined. This  was  perhaps  on  account  of  the  military 
duties  contemplated  in  the  King's  Charter.  After 
Blackwell,  Lloyd,  as  will  be  mentioned,  was  Lieutenant- 
Governor  of  Pennsylvania,  the  only  Quaker  ever  ap- 
pointed such  by  the  Penns. 

It  was  a  pity  both  for  Penn's  colony  and  for  himself 
that,  after  his  first  coming  to  America,  he  could  not 
stay  the  rest  of  his  life.  Even  if  the  colony  did  not  need 
his  wisdom,  his  influence  would  have  smoothed  away 
difficulties  in  government,  where  his  representatives 
showed  want  of  tact.  Except  when  he  sent  Markham 
as  aforesaid  to  take  possession,  and  even  including  the 
latest  commissioning  of  Markham,  every  appointment 
of  a  Lieutenant-Governor  by  William  Penn  was  unfor- 
tunate. The  support  of  such  an  official  was  an  item 
of  the  Founder's  heavy  expenditure,  and,  when  it  was 
borne  by  the  taxpayers,  it  was  hard  upon  them.  For  the 


176  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Founder  himself,  residence  in  his  colony  would  have 
saved  him  money,  liberty,  and  a  better  name  than  stern 
critics  have  allowed. 

William  Penn  had  not  been  brought  up  a  business 
man,  but  a  knight's  son,  to  be  courtier  and  soldier, 
while  bailiffs,  solicitors,  and  agents  drew  up  his  papers, 
and  handled  his  money.  The  usual  means  of  livelihood 
or  of  increasing  an  estate  for  persons  of  his  class 
were  public  office  and  marriage  with  an  heiress.  From 
the  former,  William  Penn  debarred  himself  by  his 
ecclesiastical  attitude.  His  first  wife,  Gulielma  Maria 
(Posthuma  was  an  additional  part  of  her  Christian 
name),  was  not  without  patrimony.  She  was  the  only 
child  of  Sir  William  Springett  of  Sussex,  and  came  of 
knighted  ancestors  on  the  maternal  side  as  well,  her 
mother,  who  married,  secondly,  Isaac  Pennington 
(name  then  so  spelt),  being  the  daughter  of  Sir  John 
Proude  by  his  wife  Anne  Fagge  (since  Fagg).  Al- 
though connected  rather  closely  with  Lord  Culpepper 
and  Sir  John  Fagg  (created  a  baronet  in  1660),  and 
others  of  worldly  station,  William  Penn's  wife,  being 
a  Quakeress,  avoided  the  superfluous  expenditure  of  the 
fashionable,  which  might  have  made  her  relatively  poor. 
After  Penn's  death,  somebody  in  the  family  employ 
swore  that  he  had  heard  that  Gulielma  had  brought 
Penn  an  estate  of  £20,000,  which  he  put  into  the  Penn- 
sylvania venture.  One  or  the  other  part  of  the  story 
is  an  exaggeration.  Worminghurst,  which  is  spoken 
of  as  descending  from  her  to  her  son,  appears  to  have 
been  bought  for  her  by  Penn  with  £4500  of  her  money. 
She  also  had  the  property  worth  about  £3000  which  was 
mortgaged  at  the  time  of  his  first  coming  to  America. 
In  part  recompense  for  this,  some  land  in  Pennsylvania 
was  granted  by  Penn  to  her  younger  children. 

Penn's  father  left  him  a  good  estate,  without  count- 
ing the  money  claim  against  the  English  government; 
but  William  Penn,  instead  of  husbanding  his  property, 


A  Eepublican  Feudatory.  177 

followed  the  career  of  a  minister  among  Friends,  which, 
involving  trials  and  punishment  and  travelling  and  put- 
ting forth  books,  engrossed  his  attention,  and  devoured 
his  income  as  much  perhaps  as  the  diversions  of  the 
worldly  would  have  done. 

From  the  day,  or  before  the  day,  when  Pepys  speaks 
of  Admiral  Penn's  coach  being  better  than  the  King's, 
until  the  careful  John  and  Thomas  Penn  grew  up,  the 
Penns  were  extravagant;  but  free  expenditure  in  re- 
ligious work,  or  in  maintenance  of  a  Quaker  family, 
would  not  have  piled  up  indebtedness  for  William  Penn. 
His  great  real  estate  speculation  and  his  part  in  Eng- 
lish public  life,  with  what  grew  out  of  both,  brought 
him  to  such  financial  straits  as  changed  him  from  a 
philanthropist  to  a  spoilsman  and  at  times  a  lobbyist. 

In  the  matter  of  principal  business  agent,  or  steward, 
William  Penn  was  very  unfortunate.  He  employed 
about  the  time  of  the  Admiral's  death,  a  Quaker  named 
Philip  Ford  to  look  after  the  Admiral's  affairs.  Ford, 
who  may  have  been  the  Philip  Ford  of  Buckingham- 
shire in  1666,  as  well  as  the  Philip  Ford  of  Mary  Le 
Bow  Parish,  London,  in  1677,  mentioned  in  Joseph 
Besse's  Sufferings  of  the  Quakers,  was  subsequently 
styled  as  of  London,  merchant,  and  became  in  fact  until 
his  death  banker  to  the  first  Proprietary. 

When  the  sales  to  the  "first  purchasers"  were  in 
progress,  practically  all  the  cash  was  paid  by  them  to 
Ford:  it  amounted  by  Aug.  23,  1682,  to  £5652  9s.  lid. 
Ford  bought  the  goods  to  be  sent  to  America,  and  paid 
other  expenses  of  the  undertaking,  with  probably  sums 
to  Penn  and  the  officers  under  him,  until,  as  Penn  was 
at  Deal,  about  to  set  sail  the  first  time  for  America, 
Ford  appeared  with  an  account  making  Penn  in  debt 
to  him  £2851  7s.  lOd.  Penn,  having  no  time  to  look 
into  this,  marked  it  correct.  Then,  to  secure  Ford, 
he  gave  him,  intended  as  a  mortgage,  a  lease  and  re- 
lease, dated  Aug.  23  and  24,  1682,  for  300,000  acres 

12 


178  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

in  Pennsylvania,  and  a  bond,  dated  Aug.  24,  to  pay 
£3000  on  Aug.  26.  These  and  the  subsequent  instru- 
ments executed  by  one  to  the  other  were  not  to  interfere 
with  Penn's  making  sales,  and  his  giving  good  title  to 
surveyed  lots,  but  were  merely  to  protect  Ford,  and 
were  accordingly  kept  secret  during  his  life. 

Over  and  above  the  debt  which  Penn  relinquished  to 
the  Crown,  the  actual  expenses  of  starting  the  colony, 
including  Penn's  living  there  two  years,  took  all  the 
money  from  the  sales  until  after  his  return  from  his 
first  visit;  and  then,  for  a  long  period,  the  sales  were 
few.  He  had  secured  as  quit  rents  an  annual  income 
for  the  future  of  about  £400,  exclusive  of  what  the 
Swedes  and  other  old  inhabitants  would  pay.  The  quit 
rents  were  not  promptly  paid,  and  in  many  cases  were 
years  in  arrears.  The  Assembly  had,  in  March,  1682-3, 
been  so  complaisant  as  to  grant  him  2d.  per  gallon  on 
all  rum,  wine,  brandy,  and  strong  waters  imported,  Id. 
per  gallon  on  all  cider,  and  20s.  on  every  £100  on  all 
merchandise  except  molasses.  How  much  was  ever 
collected,  we  do  not  know :  but,  although  intended  to  be 
permanent,  and  so  reenacted  until  1690,  this  aid  to  him 
was  repealed  in  that  year. 

On  Penn's  return  from  his  first  visit.  Ford  said  that 
£1000  were  owing  to  the  latter,  while  the  account,  or 
the  copy  of  it  preserved  by  the  Historical  Society  of 
Pennsylvania,  has  a  further  credit  of  £1858  12s.  4d. 
received  by  Ford  for  lands  to  lmo.  21,  1684-5.  Ford's 
wife  was  not  satisfied  with  the  security,  and,  although 
£518  12s.  more  came  from  sales,  Penn  was  continuing 
to  get  advances;  so,  under  date  of  June  10,  1685,  he 
made,  in  place  of  the  lease  and  release,  a  long  term  lease 
to  Ford,  following  a  method  at  one  time  much  in  vogue 
in  England  to  make  land  disposable  as  if  not  real  estate. 
This  lease  from  Penn  to  Ford  was  for  5000  years,  and 
covered  all  quit  rents  and  300,000  acres,  including  the 
manors  of  Pennsbury,  Springton,  and  Springfield  and 


A  Republican  Feudatory.  179 

city  lands,  making  exceptions,  it  appears,  of  what  had 
been  already  sold.  There  was  a  clause  for  annulment 
on  repaying  the  consideration  expressed,  viz.  £5000. 
On  2,  24,  1686,  before  going  to  Holland,  Penn  wrote  to 
friends  in  Pennsylvania  that  to  raise  money  was  hin- 
dering his  return  to  the  province — perhaps  the  King 
contributed  to  the  journey  to  Holland.  Penn  told  these 
friends  that  he  had  spent  £3000  since  he  saw  London, 
besides  paying  some  bills  drawn  before  leaving  Amer- 
ica. So  the  long  term  lease  to  Ford  was  replaced  two 
years  after  its  date  by  one  covering  also  the  town  of 
New  Castle,  and  representing  £6000. 

Brought  by  the  Baltimore  claim  into  closer  inter- 
course not  only  with  the  court  officials,  but  with  James, 
who  was  Duke  of  York  at  Penn's  return  to  England, 
but  succeeded  as  King  a  few  months  later,  William 
Penn,  until  the  authority  of  that  monarch  was  at  an 
end,  had  great  prominence  and  power  in  the  realm  as 
one  of  the  King's  personal  friends.  Attached  to  him 
by  gratitude,  and  seeing  in  his  endeavors  to  break  down 
the  Established  Church  a  chance  for  general  religious 
toleration,  Penn  pursued  a  political  course,  which,  how- 
ever beneficial  to  the  Quakers  and  to  others,  has  not 
made  him  popular  with  English  historians.  The 
Quakers  should  rather  revere  the  memory  of  the  Stuart, 
who,  in  his  attempt  to  reconcile  England  to  Rome,  re- 
lieved their  early  co-religionists  and  other  Dissenters. 
His  "merry"  brother,  Charles  II,  although  at  first 
inclined  to  toleration,  had  yielded  to  the  party  insisting 
upon  conformity  to  a  Protestant  liturgy,  and  had  relin- 
quished an  idea  of  reestablishing  Romanism,  and  had 
not  stirred  himself  to  interfere  with  the  prosecution  of 
the  "Children  of  the  Light:"  at  least  he  left  at  his 
death  about  1200  of  these  non-militant  persons  in  jail 
for  not  taking  an  oath,  or  not  attending  their  parish 
church.  James,  by  proclamation  dated  March  15, 
1685-6,  released  them,  and  remitted  their  fines,  and  he 


180  Chkonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

stopped  further  process  and  indictment.  It  is  not 
strange,  therefore,  that,  as  a  messenger  from  James, 
William  Penn,  about  two  months  later,  on  a  religious 
visit  to  Holland,  sought  William  of  Orange,  who,  fail- 
ing the  Princesses  Mary  and  Anne,  was  heir  to  the 
British  throne,  to  get  his  support  for  James 's  proposal 
to  abolish  the  religious  test  for  holding  office.  William 
would  not  agree,  although  expressing  himself  opposed 
to  penal  laws  against  faith  and  worship.  Penn  is  said 
to  have  thought  that  a  declaration  of  indulgence 
founded  on  a  royal  claim  to  dispense  with  statutes  would 
be  a  mistake;  but,  after  James,  on  April  4,  1687, 
issued  his  famous  declaration  suspending  the  laws 
against  non-conformity,  and  dispensing  with  the  tests 
which  had  excluded  all  but  members  of  the  Established 
Church  from  seats  in  Parliament  and  offices,  the  Yearly 
Meeting,  on  3,  19,  1687,  adopted  an  address  thanking 
the  King,  and  praying  God  to  preserve  him  and  those 
under  him  in  so  good  a  work,  and  assuring  him  that 
it  was  well  accepted  in  the  counties  from  which  the 
attendants  came,  and  hoping  that  its  good  effects  would 
produce  such  a  concurrence  from  the  Parliament  as 
would  secure  it  to  posterity;  and  Penn,  at  the  head  of 
a  delegation  for  the  purpose,  presented  the  address. 

Peun's  right  to  make  laws  for  more  than  Pennsyl- 
vania proper,  being  of  even  greater  doubtfulness  than 
his  title  to  the  soil  of  the  Lower  Counties,  and  a  patent 
for  the  latter  being  in  preparation  after  James  II  as- 
cended the  throne,  a  suggested  form  for  the  patent, 
which  is  preserved  by  the  Historical  Society,  relieved 
Penn  from  all  liability  for  allowing  religious  toleration 
in  those  parts. 

When  James  II,  by  headlong  disregard  of  the  advice 
of  Penn  and  other  loyal  and  honest  observers,  had  lost 
his  hold  upon  his  subjects,  and  nearly  every  one  was 
serving  the  plans  of  the  Prince  of  Orange,  Penn  did 
not  even  go  to  the  country,  and  assume  an  appearance 


A  Republican  Feudatory.  181 

of  neutrality.  On  the  day  preceding  that  on  which 
James,  throwing  the  great  seal  into  the  Thames,  made 
the  first  attempt  at  flight,  Penn  was  walking  in  White- 
hall, and  the  Lords  of  the  Council  sent  for  him,  and  took 
security  in  £6000  for  his  appearance  to  answer  any 
charge  which  might  be  made  against  him.  Thus,  hav- 
ing overspent  so  much,  he  was,  at  the  accomplishment 
of  the  Eevolution,  poor,  in  debt,  and  under  suspicion. 
On  Feb.  20,  1688-9,  the  Committee  for  Trade  and  Plan- 
tations, having  called  him  and  Lord  Baltimore  before 
them,  ordered  the  two  Proprietaries  to  proclaim 
William  and  Mary  in  Pennsylvania  and  Maryland 
respectively,  and  both  Penn  and  Lord  Baltimore  prom- 
ised to  obey  any  order  of  the  Committee.  Three  days 
afterwards,  a  letter  from  the  Privy  Council,  dated  the 
19th,  with  the  form  of  a  proclamation  to  be  used  in 
Pennsylvania,  was  handed  to  Penn.  By  the  infrequent, 
slow,  and  perilous  communication  with  America  in  that 
century,  this  did  not  reach  Pennsylvania  until  a  year 
and  six  months  all  but  a  few  days  had  elapsed.  Before 
the  end  of  February,  1688-9,  the  Council  ordered  Penn's 
arrest,  he  being  then  at  his  seat,  Worminghurst ;  but, 
writing  to  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  Penn  protested  his 
innocence  of  any  part  in  any  conspiracy  against  the 
new  government,  and  his  not  knowing  of  any,  and  re- 
quested that  the  new  King  allow  him  to  remain  at  his 
house  in  the  country,  and  attend  to  pressing  business 
relating  to  America,  being  under  the  aforesaid  heavy 
bail.  The  King  allowed  this.  At  Easter  Term,  nothing- 
being  alleged  against  Penn,  he  was  cleared  and  dis- 
charged by  the  Judges. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

Government  under  the  Frame  of  1683. 

Insignificance  of  the  acting  Governors  of  Penn's 
colony  and  the  explanation — John  Blackwell — 
Quakers  hard  to  manage  in  political  affairs — His 
high  notions  of  government — Control  of  the  press 
— Penn  partly  responsible — Obstruction  of  busi- 
ness by  Thomas  Lloyd  and  others — Assembly  con- 
tends for  member's  privileges — Question  of  any 
laws  being  in  force — White's  arrest — All  laws 
passed  before  Penn's  departure  declared  in  force 
until  he  could  be  heard  from — William  and  Mary 
recognized,  and  debate  in  Council  upon  arming  the 
colony  for  defence  against  France — Blackwell  re- 
lieved of  the  governorship,  the  Council  succeeding 
with  Lloyd  as  President — Impost  for  Penn  discon- 
tinued— The  people  of  the  Lower  Counties  dissatis- 
fied with  the  Pennsylvania  Councillors — Failure 
of  justice  in  Lower  Counties — Split  in  Council  on 
choice  of  new  commissions  for  the  Deputyship — 
Lloyd  chosen  Lieutenant-Governor — Delawareans 
choose  Cann  as  President — The  borough  Philadel- 
phia chartered  as  a  City — Capture  of  a  river  pirate 
— Penn  commissions  Lloyd,  and  makes  Markham 
Lieut.-Governor  of  the  Lower  Counties. 

While  the  Governorship  of  some  of  the  colonies, 
being  a  rulership  directly  under  the  Crown,  was  often, 
even  in  pioneer  days,  held  by  a  person  distinguished 
by  title  of  nobility,  by  family  relationship,  or  by  the 
command  of  expeditions,  the  reader  will  look  in  vain  for 
such,  unless  one  baronet  will  answer,  among  those  who 
before  1776  administered  the  affairs  of  Pennsylvania 


Government  Under  the  Frame  of  1683.       183 

and  Delaware.  They  with  the  exception  of  William  Penn 
himself  and  Benjamin  Fletcher  were  merely  Lieu- 
tenants of  a  Governor-in-Chief,  and  so  of  lesser  dignity. 
As  a  rule,  the  Penns  appointed  some  inhabitant  of  the 
colonies  or  an  inferior  military  officer.  Without  the 
prestige  of  a  Governor-in-Chief ,  or  "King's  Governor," 
or  "Royal  Governor,"  and  involving  practically  ban- 
ishment from  civilization,  and  with  a  stipend  providing 
for  mere  daily  living,  the  office  long  was  what  no  resi- 
dent of  the  Old  World  in  good  circumstances  would 
accept.  Edward  Randolph,  in  1695,  making  objections 
to  all  Proprietary  governments,  pointed  out  that  the 
actual  governors  in  such  were  mere  stewards  of  the 
Proprietaries,  and  were  persons  of  indifferent  quali- 
fications, parts,  and  estates,  with  inconsiderable  main- 
tenance and  precarious  tenure.  The  dominions  of  the 
Penns  and  the  dominions  of  the  Calverts  alone  re- 
mained subject  to  rule  by  Proprietaries  after  pioneer 
days,  being  in  fact  so  subject  until  the  American 
Revolution.  Occasionally,  matching  the  said  Lieuten- 
ant-Governors in  inferiority  of  designation,  the  actual 
governors  of  some  colonies  under  Crown  rule,  as 
Robert  Dinwiddie  in  Virginia,  were  only  Lieutenant- 
Governors,  an  absentee  being  titular  Governor.  The 
earliest  Governors  of  Virginia  were  knighted  upon  ap- 
pointment, if  not  already  knights  or  higher  in  pre- 
cedency. The  dullness  of  Philadelphia  to  a  non-Quaker 
has  been  spoken  of:  the  parsimony  of  those  who  were 
expected  to  pay  the  stipend  will  appear  in  the  early 
part  of  this  history.  These  respective  characteristics 
were  slow  in  yielding  to  the  influence  of  neighbouring 
example.  Besides  all  this,  the  task  of  conducting  the 
affairs  of  Pennsylvania  was,  as  will  be  seen,  peculiarly 
difficult;  and,  even  when  the  colony  equalled  or  ex- 
ceeded some  of  the  Royal  ones  in  population  and 
wealth,  and  furnished  to  a  satisfactory  official  a  good 
income,  the  situation  of  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  who 


184  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

otherwise  might  have  been  contented  with  the  title, 
surroundings,  and  remuneration,  was  very  disagree- 
able. He  had  to  serve  three  masters,  to  whom  his  con- 
duct was  reported  by  independent  officers,  by  business 
agents,  or  by  intractable  politicians  respectively;  the 
three  masters  being  the  King,  chiefly  in  matters  of  war, 
customs  revenue,  and  trade  regulations,  who  could 
force  his  removal,  and  otherwise  punish  him,  the  Pro- 
prietary, who  appointed  and  could  supersede  him,  and 
the  People,  or,  at  least,  the  freemen  represented  in 
Assembly,  who  paid  him.  To  the  difficulty  of  harmoniz- 
ing the  requirements  of  the  King  and  the  freemen,  was 
added  the  obligation  to  protect  the  interests  of  the  Pro- 
prietary, and,  lest  gratitude  or  fear  of  removal  might 
not  be  sufficient  to  induce  the  Lieutenant  to  follow  this 
obligation,  instructions  and  limitations  of  power  were 
put  upon  him.  William  Penn  himself,  not  only,  as  we 
have  seen,  made  reservations  capable  of  great  exten- 
sion, but  also  began  the  giving  of  instructions. 

In  the  matter  of  previous  career,  more  can  be  said  of 
John  Blackwell  than  of  most  of  the  other  Lieutenant- 
Governors.  He,  as  Captain  John  Blackwell  Junr.  from 
Mortlake,  Co.  Essex,  had  been  a  Treasurer  of  the  Army 
in  the  time  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  afterwards  had 
refused  a  great  office  in  Ireland  under  Charles  II  and 
James  II  because  its  emolument  was  derived  from  per- 
quisites. Blackwell  had  married  General  Lambert's 
daughter,  and  was  a  Puritan,  of  whom  Nathaniel 
Mather  wrote  in  1684  (Mass.  Hist.  Coll.) :  "For  serious 
reall  piety  &  nobleness  of  spirit,  prudence,  &ct.,  I  have 
not  been  acquainted  with  many  that  equall  him."  He 
was  residing  in  New  England,  when,  without  solicita- 
tion, Penn  selected  him,  hoping  that,  while  Blackwell 's 
conscience  would  leave  him  free  to  perform  military 
service,  his  high  character  would  command  the  respect 
of  the  Quakers,  and  that  thus  there  would  be  an  ad- 
ministration satisfactory  both  to  the  King  and  to  the 


Government  Under  the  Frame  of  1683.      185 

colonists.  Penn  does  not  appear  to  have  taken  into 
account  the  antipathy  between  a  Puritan  and  a  Quaker, 
who  had  scarcely  anything  in  common  but  opposition 
to  the  Church  of  England,  and  were  inclined  to  tolerate 
one  of  its  adherents  rather  than  each  other.  Blackwell, 
rather  as  a  favor  to  Penn,  to  whom  or  to  whose  father 
he  may  have  felt  gratitude  for  something  in  those  peril- 
ous times,  accepted  with  the  expectation  of  being  soon 
relieved  by  the  return  of  Penn  to  America.  The  col- 
lection of  the  quit  rents  was  also  given  to  Blackwell, 
and  the  percentage  allowed  to  him  with  the  fines  and 
forfeitures  accruing  to  the  Governor  seems  to  have 
been  his  entire  or  the  chief  part  of  his  remuneration. 
He  thus  being  an  interested  party,  when  he  had  sat  as 
magistrate  in  trials  where  fines  or  forfeitures  might 
be  found  due,  the  Assembly,  but  not  by  unanimous  vote, 
took  a  stand  for  the  impartiality  of  the  judiciary,  and 
declared  such  a  course  a  grievance.  He  arrived  in 
Philadelphia  on  Dec.  17,  1688,  before  news  had  come 
of  the  landing  of  the  Prince  of  Orange  in  England. 
Blackwell 's  first  act,  on  assuming  office  on  the  18th, 
was,  it  happened,  the  setting  apart,  according  to  an 
order  received,  of  a  day  for  "solemn  thanksgiving  to 
Almighty  God  for  His  inestimable  blessing  to  his 
Majesty's  kingdoms  and  dominions  by  the  birth  of  a 
Prince,"  the  poor  little  baby  who  in  later  history  was 
commonly  known  as  the  Pretender,  who  on  the  thanks- 
giving day  was  in  France  for  safety. 

The  Councillors  when  Blackwell  arrived  were  the 
following:  from  Philadelphia  County,  Turner  and 
Carpenter  and  Samuel  Richardson ;  from  Bucks,  Cooke 
and  Joseph  Growdon  and  William  Yardley;  from 
Chester,  Simcock  and  John  Bristow  and  Bartholomew 
Coppock;  from  New  Castle,  John  Cann,  Peter  Alricks, 
and  Johannes  De  Haes;  from  Kent,  William  Darvall, 
ex-Lieutenant-Governor  Markham,  and  Griffith  Jones, 
a  Quaker,  evidently  identical  with  the  Philadelphia 


186  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

merchant,  and  from  Sussex,  William  Clark  and  Luke 
Watson,  there  being  a  vacancy  owing  to  the  dismissal 
of  William  Dyer,  who  was  a  son  of  the  Quaker  martyr, 
Mary  Dyer,  put  to  death  in  Boston.  Besides  Jones, 
Clark  and  all  those  from  the  Upper  Counties  were 
Quakers.  If  the  Jones  whom  Blackwell  so  much  fav- 
ored was  not  the  Welsh  attorney,  but  the  Councillor, 
the  latter  was  not  one  of  the  former  Quaker  office- 
holders, and  consideration  shown  to  him  rather  excited 
their  jealousy. 

A  Quaker  community  in  the  time  when  nearly  every 
member  had  experienced  a  call  to  seriousness  was  more 
moral  probably  than  the  same  number  of  persons  of 
any  other  religious  denomination,  although  the  num- 
ber of  accusations  in  the  early  records  of  Pennsylvania, 
as  well  as  those  of  the  Territories  Annexed,  surprises 
us.  Physical  violence  was  utterly  inconsistent  with 
Quaker  habits,  so  that  in  this  respect,  under  Quaker  in- 
fluence, at  least  Pennsylvania  proper  was  law-abiding. 
Politically,  however,  the  Quaker  freemen  were  hard 
to  manage,  apart  from  any  question  of  obeying  God 
rather  than  man,  as  they  felt  on  the  subject  of  war 
and  oaths.  A  characteristic  of  the  Children  of  the 
Light  was  not  docility.  They  had  begun  by  the  adop- 
tion of  theories  and  practices  in  the  face  of  all  ecclesi- 
astical tradition  known  to  them,  and  of  the  customs  of 
their  neighbours;  and  the  tendency  of  such  reformers 
was  to  be  opinionated,  censorious,  and  intractable. 
Years  of  subjection  to  persecution  had  hardened  their 
character,  had  accustomed  them  to  the  status  of  rebels, 
and  had  made  them  fearless.  Disputations  had  sharp- 
ened the  wits  of  their  leaders,  and  embittered  their 
language.  It  will  be  seen,  particularly  at  the  attempts 
to  enforce  privileges,  perquisites,  and  impositions 
which  landlords  and  rulers  had  usually  exacted,  and 
which  elsewhere  had  been  agreed  to  as  matters  of 
course,  how  far  the  Quakers  of  Pennsylvania  were 


Government  Under  the  Frame  of  1683.      187 

from  being  a  flock  of  sheep  uncomplainingly  allowing 
themselves  to  be  fleeced. 

Blackwell  was   dignified  and  fairly  courteous,   but 
very  exacting  of  deference,  unflinching  in  following 
what  he  deemed  his  duty,  and  requiring  everybody  to 
observe  the  letter  of  the  law.     His  participation  in 
the  Civil  War  had  made  him  more  military  than  re- 
publican.    Perhaps  he  was  afraid  of  not  appearing 
thoroughly  loyal  to  the  monarchical  regime:  he  had 
narrowly  escaped  attainder  as  an  accessory  to  the  put- 
ting to  death  of  Charles  I,  having,  in  the  course  of 
business  as  Treasurer,  paid  for  building  the  scaffold. 
Commissioned,   it   appears,   as   Governor,   instead   of 
Lieutenant-Governor,    by    Penn,    Blackwell   had   high 
ideas  of  the  prerogative  with  which  the  appointment 
invested  him.    When  he  examined  William  Bradford 
on  the  charge  of  printing  without  authorization  the 
Frame  of  Government,  and,  finally,  on  Bradford's  de- 
clining to  accuse  himself  by  acknowledging  the  print- 
ing, bound  Bradford  in  500Z.  to  print  nothing  without 
the  Governor's  ''imprimatur,"  Blackwell  remarked: 
"I  question  whether  there  hath  been  a  Governor  here 
before  or  not,  or  those  which  understood  what  govern- 
ment was,  which  makes  things  as  they  now  are."    It 
is  most  probable  that  until  his  arrival  he  was  not  aware 
how  Penn's  charter  embodying  the  Frame  of  1683  had 
neutralized  the  seigniorial  powers  conferred  upon  the 
Proprietary  by  the  King:  and  Blackwell  doubted  the 
validity  of  such  neutralizing.     Blackwell  was  either 
very  astute  in  raising  legal  questions,  or  appreciative 
of  points,   suggested,  perhaps,  by  Griffith  Jones  the 
lawyer. 

Perhaps  Penn  expected  Blackwell  to  set  things  right, 
a  sentence  of  some  instructions  telling  him  to  ■ '  rule  the 
meek  meekly,  others  that  will  not  be  so  ruled,  rule  with 
authority."  Moreover,  Penn  had  given  to  Blackwell, 
so  the  latter  told  Bradford,   a  particular  order  for 


188  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

"suppressing  of  printing  here,  and  narrowly  to  look 
after  your  press."  This  we  have  from  an  old  manu- 
script account  of  Bradford's  examination.  Before  the 
Council,  Blackwell  said  that  Penn  had  declared  himself 
against  the  use  of  the  printing  press. 

With  Blackwell,  on  his  part,  feeling,  as  might  have 
been  expected,  no  predilection  for  the  Quakers,  and 
putting  Jones  in  the  commission  of  the  peace  for  at 
least  three  counties,  making  Patrick  Robinson  pro- 
Register-General,  and  naming  Markham  as  first  among 
the  Justices  of  all  the  counties,  the  conduct  of  the  lead- 
ing Quakers,  on  their  part,  was  not  such  as  to  win 
Blackwell.  Contention  filled  the  time  of  his  adminis- 
tration. Lloyd,  from  the  first,  interposed  his  own  judg- 
ment in  matters  where  it  seemed  to  be  his  duty  to  obey 
orders.  Blackwell,  being  referred  by  his  commission 
to  such  instructions  as  had  been  sent  to  the  President 

rand  Council,  or  to  the  Commissioners  of  State,  called 
for  "the  letter  sent  by  the  hands  of  Edward  Blackfan," 
and  secured  resolutions  from  the  Council — those  pres- 
ent being  four  Quakers  and  Darvall  and  Markham — 
that  all  original  letters  and  instructions  either  to  Com- 
missioners of  State  or  President  and  Council  should 
be  delivered  to  the  Secretary,  and  such  parts  of  other 
letters  to  any  of  them  as  gave  instructions  should  be 
transcribed,  and  the  transcripts  certified  for  the  Secre- 
tary. Perhaps  Lloyd  and  those  in  his  confidence  had 
been  concealing  Penn's  threat,  in  the  letter  of  12mo.  1, 
1686,  to  dissolve  the  Frame;  perhaps  they  thought  it 
injudicious  to  publish  his  order  to  abrogate  the  laws, 
deeming  such  order  illegal,  or  not  representing  his  later 
wish,  or  in  fact  obsolete.  At  any  rate,  Lloyd  allowed 
Blackwell  to  read  only  some  parts  of  the  letter,  and 
then  Lloyd  took  a  month  to  consult  the  others  to  whom 
this  and  other  letters  were  addressed  as  to  complying 
with  the  request  for  delivery  to  the  Secretary.  Appar- 
ently Cooke  and  Eckley  felt  the  same  way  as  Lloyd, 


Government  Under  the  Frame  of  1683.      189 

who  made  answer  that  the  original  letters  had  been  duly 
considered  by  those  lately  Commissioners,  and  they 
knew  of  none  which  might  now  be  of  service,  that  such 
as  contained  instructions  had  been  delivered  to  view, 
and  were  transcribed,  and  that  most  of  the  letters  re- 
mained in  his  own  custody  with  the  assent  of  those  to 
whom  they  were  directed.  It  was  at  last  agreed  unani- 
mously in  the  Council  that  attested  copies  of  the  letters 
and  of  the  parts  of  private  letters  should  be  delivered. 
Lloyd  also  claimed  the  right  to  refuse  the  great  seal 
to  documents  which  he  deemed  improper,  a  right  which 
would  have  made  him  a  chancellor  or  a  court  to  declare 
acts  unconstitutional  or  a  superior  governor,  and  which 
would  have  resulted  in  such  confusion  that  Penn  can  not 
be  supposed  to  have  intended  it.  Lloyd's  first  refusal 
was  in  regard  to  a  certain  commission  for  Justices  of 
the  Peace  and  holding  of  a  County  Court  for  Philadel- 
phia County,  the  form  of  the  commission  being  dis- 
approved of  by  him.  On  his  intending  to  visit  New 
York,  the  Council,  six  being  present,  asked  him  to  leave 
the  seal  for  the  accommodation  of  public  business,  the 
Quakers  on  this  occasion  adopting  Blackwell's  motion, 
Simcock  saying  that  the  Keeper  should  not  be  allowed 
to  go  away.  Lloyd,  in  writing,  declared  that  the  action 
of  the  Council  was  an  arbitrary  disposing  of  the  most 
eminent  estate  for  life  yet  given  in  the  government, 
that  he  had  been  unkindly  dealt  with,  and  that,  being- 
done  by  a  minority  of  the  members,  and  by  vote 
instead  of  ballot, — the  Frame  requiring  ballot  in  the 
choosing  of  officers  and  all  other  personal  matters,— 
the  act  was  unwarrantable  by  law  and  charter;  and 
he  asked  that  either  the  order  be  erased  from  the  Coun- 
cil book,  or  his  paper  filed  as  a  protest.  Blackwell  had 
gotten  over  the  difficulty  about  the  County  Court  by  de- 
ciding to  issue  under  the  lesser  seal  the  commissions 
in  the  form  which  he  had  chosen,  and  to  refer  the 
matter  to  the  Proprietary.    But  it  was  not  easy  to  do 


190  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

without  Lloyd  in  the  matter  of  the  Supreme  Court,  or, 
as  it  was  called,  the  Provincial  Court,  which  alone  could 
try  capital  crimes.  The  law  passed  while  Penn  was  in 
the  colony  provided  for  five  Judges  appointed  by  the 
Governor  under  the  great  seal.  There  had  been  passed 
in  1685  a  provision  for  a  special  commissioning,  not 
requiring  that  seal,  of  three  Judges  by  the  Governor 
and  Council,  but,  even  if  this  was  not  abrogated  by 
Penn's  letter  of  1686,  it  appeared  to  be  an  infringement 
of  his  right  by  the  King's  patent  to  appoint  all  Judges, 
and  therefore  void  as  within  the  exception  to  the  power 
under  which  in  1685  the  Council  had  represented  Penn 
in  making  laws.  Cooke  asked  that  Lloyd's  advice  be 
sought,  and,  this  being  refused,  Cooke  left  the  meeting ; 
Clark,  Darvall,  Jones,  Coppock,  Turner,  and  Markham 
remaining,  it  was  carried  unanimously  to  commission 
under  the  older  law,  and  according  to  a  form  then  read 
by  Blackwell.  This  being  sent  to  Lloyd,  he  declared  it 
not  proper  for  the  seal,  and  ''more  moulded  by  fancy 
than  formed  by  law,  the  style  insecure,  the  powers  un- 
warrantable, and  the  duration  not  consonant  to  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  laws  upon  which  it  should  be  grounded." 
The  Governor  and  Council  having  removed  David 
Lloyd  from  the  Clerkship  for  Philadelphia  County, 
Thomas  Lloyd,  claiming  the  right  to  appoint  the  Clerk, 
commissioned  David  as  such  on  lmo.  1,  1688-9.  It  was 
resolved  by  the  Council  that  this  was  an  usurpation  of 
the  Governor's  authority;  and  David  surrendered  the 
records  in  due  time. 

Richardson  (ancestor  of  Gov.  Samuel  W.  Penny- 
packer)  offended  Blackwell  \s  punctiliousness  by  criti- 
cising both  in  and  out  of  Council  a  resolution  of  the 
body,  and  his  pride  by  repeated  declarations  that 
Penn's  deputy  was  not  Governor,  for  Penn  could  not 
appoint  one.  Cooke,  expressing  himself  more  mildly, 
scrupled  at  any  title  but  Deputy-Governor.  Blackwell 
moved  that  Richardson  be  ordered  to  leave  while  the 


Government  Under  the  Frame  of  1683.      191 

Council  debated  the  question.  Richardson  declared: 
' '  I  will  not  withdraw,  I  was  not  brought  hither  by  thee, 
and  I  will  not  go  out  by  thy  order;  I  was  sent  by  the 
people,  and  thou  hast  no  power  to  put  me  out."  The 
others  thought  he  should  withdraw ;  and,  when  he  had 
done  so,  it  was  agreed,  seven  members  being  present, 
that  he  should  acknowledge  his  offence,  and  promise 
more  respect  in  future,  before  he  could  be  allowed  to 
sit  again. 

The  imperative  business  in  the  Spring  of  1689  was 
the  making  of  a  new  set  of  laws,  the  act  of  3mo.  10, 
1688,  having  provided  that,  except  the  fundamental 
laws,  no  law  passed  previously,  or  at  that  session, 
should  remain  in  force  longer  than  until  twenty  days 
after  the  end  of  the  first  session  of  the  next  Assembly. 
Accordingly,  the  Governor  and  Council  were  bound  in 
duty  to  propose,  as  prescribed  by  the  Frame,  a  code, 
to  be  published  and  affixed  in  the  most  public  place  in 
each  county  by  the  20th  of  the  2nd  month,  i.e.  twenty 
days  before  the  meeting  of  the  Assembly  which  was  to 
accept  or  reject  them.  The  election  held  in  1st  month, 
1688-9,  resulted  in  the  continuance  of  Simcock  and 
Clark  in  the  Council  and  the  choice  of  John  Eckley, 
Lloyd,  William  Stockdale,  and  John  Curtis,  in  the  place 
of  Turner,  Cooke,  Cann,  and  Darvall,  and  the  choice  of 
John  Hill  for  the  vacancy  from  Sussex. 

Questions  as  to  right  to  seats  prevented  the  Council 
from  getting  to  work  in  time  for  legislation.  On  the 
ground  that  fifty  or  sixty  inhabitants  of  the  Welsh 
Tract  had  voted  in  Philadelphia,  whereas  that  tract  had 
been  actually  taken  into  Chester  County,  Eckley 's  elec- 
tion was  declared  void.  The  Lieutenant-Governor,  pur- 
suant to  the  suspension  of  Eichardson,  issued  a  writ 
for  an  election  in  his  place,  as  well  as  for  an  election 
in  Eckley 's.  As  to  Lloyd,  Blackwell  proposed  articles 
of  impeachment.  Richardson  came  to  the  Council  meet- 
ing to  take  his  place,  justifying  his  former  language, 


192  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

and  refusing  to  withdraw;  so  that  the  Governor  ad- 
journed the  sitting  until  the  afternoon.  Then  the  ques- 
tion was  raised  whether  the  Council  could  exclude  a 
member  chosen  by  the  people,  Blackwell  standing  on 
the  privilege  of  all  courts  and  corporations  to  judge 
of  the  misbehavior  of  their  members,  and  saying  that  he 
would  not  suffer  such  affronts  from  any  person  sitting 
at  the  board,  and  would  so  notify  the  Proprietary. 
Markham,  the  Secretary,  writes  this  minute:  "Many 
intemperate  speeches  &  passages  happend,  fitt  to  be 
had  in  oblivion."  The  question  of  Lloyd's  impeach- 
ment being  then  taken  up,  there  arose  warm  debates, 
his  friends  objecting  to  framing  any  charges.  At  the 
next  meeting,  Lloyd  walked  into  the  room,  saying  that 
he  had  come  to  take  his  seat.  The  Lieutenant-Governor 
told  him  that  nothing  was  expected  from  him  until  he 
answered  the  charges.  He,  replying  that  he  had  as  good 
a  right  to  be  there  as  Blackwell  had  to  be  Lieutenant- 
Governor,  accordingly  refused  to  withdraw.  Black- 
well  then  asked  the  other  members  to  follow  him  to 
his  lodgings.  Some  stayed  to  reason  with  Lloyd,  among 
them  Markham,  the  Secretary,  but  such  were  the 
"sharp  and  unsavory  expressions"  used  by  Lloyd, 
which  the  Lieutenant-Governor  heard,  he  having  gone 
no  further  than  outside  the  door,  that  Markham  induced 
him  to  return.  Lloyd  was  again  commanded  to  depart, 
and  the  other  members  followed  the  Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor to  his  lodgings.  On  arriving  there,  eleven  mem- 
bers voted  to  proceed  with  the  preparation  of  the  laws 
for  the  Assembly's  action:  four  Quakers,  Carpenter, 
Growdon,  Yardley,  and  Bristow,  voted  no,  being  appar- 
ently unwilling  to  act  without  Lloyd,  Richardson,  and 
Eckley.  On  the  8th  of  2nd  month,  at  the  election 
ordered  by  the  Lieutenant-Governor  to  fill  Eckley 's  and 
Richardson's  places,  the  freemen  decided  to  take  no 
ballot,  although  the  Frame  required  it.  In  Chester  and 
the  Lower  Counties,  the  ballot  had  been  frequently  by 


Government  Under  the  Frame  of  1683.       193 

black  and  white  beans  in  a  hat.  On  this  occasion,  by 
majority  vote  or  voice,  Eckley  and  Richardson  were 
sent  back.  On  the  same  day,  there  was  an  agreement 
reached  in  Council  as  to  what  laws  were  fundamental: 
but,  it  having  been  pointed  out  that  the  laws,  to  be  valid 
under  the  King's  letters  patent,  were  to  be  published 
by  the  Proprietary  or  his  Deputy  under  the  seal  of 
the  Proprietary  or  Deputy,  and  it  not  being  clear  that 
any  but  the  Act  of  Union  had  been  passed  under  the 
great  seal,  a  question  arose  whether  any  of  the  funda- 
mentals had  been  legally  established. 

The  Councillors  were  turned  from  the  subject  the 
next  morning  by  the  Lieutenant-Governor  finding  fault 
with  Growdon  for  promoting  the  printing  of  copies  of 
the  Frame  of  Government.  It  was  this  printing  which 
caused  the  proceeding  against  Bradford,  as  before  re- 
lated. Blackwell  expressed  a  fear  that,  if  it  were  known 
outside  of  the  province,  that  Penn  had  granted  certain 
privileges,  it  might  result  in  a  questioning  of  the  Pro- 
prietary title.  Growdon  declined  to  retire  during  the 
discussion,  aud  demanded  the  admission  of  the  three 
excluded  members.  Blackwell  maintained  the  disquali- 
fication of  Lloyd  and  Richardson,  and  the  nullity  of  the 
second  election  of  Eckley,  although  politely  regretting 
that  it  was  not  legal  to  admit  one  so  fit  as  the  last 
named.  Blackwell  refused  to  let  the  Councillors  ballot 
upon  this  point,  declaring  it  unsafe  to  let  men  who  were 
under  such  factional  influence  vote  secretly.  The 
Quakers  generally  being  indisposed  to  go  into  the  con- 
sideration of  the  laws  with  three  representatives  of 
their  element  of  the  population  excluded,  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, then  excusing  from  attendance  all  the 
Councillors  except  those  required  for  routine  business, 
let  all  legislation  fail. 

After  the  adjournment  on  that  day,  Simcock,  Grow- 
don, Yardley,  Curtis.  Carpenter.  Coppock,  and  Stock- 
dale  wrote  a  complaint  to  Penn— Bristow  had  gone 

13 


194  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

before  it  was  signed — of  BlackwelPs  actions  against 
Lloyd,  Richardson,  and  Eckley  in  opposition  to  the 
Councillors '  wishes,  and  of  the  putting  of  a  stop  to  leg- 
islation. These  seven  told  Penn  that  Blackwell  rather 
watched  them  for  evil,  taking  down  in  short  hand  every 
word  they  said,  and  preparing,  when  they  were  gone, 
the  minutes  for  his  servant,  a  Frenchman,  to  transcribe, 
and,  although  in  many  things  keeping  "near  to  the 
truth, ' '  frequently  omitting  or  denying  what  was  mate- 
rial, that  he  represented  them  and  "the  best  people" 
as  seditious  &ct.,  for  asserting  in  moderation  their  just 
rights,  and  appearing  unanimous  in  choice  of  repre- 
sentatives, and  standing  together  against  their  known 
enemies,  and  that  Blackwell,  instead  of  taking  the  ad- 
vice of  those  previously  intrusted  with  the  government, 
consulted  with  Jones,  Robinson,  and  Markham.  The 
wish  was  earnestly  expressed  that  Penn  return  to 
America.  "We  now  see  the  difference  between  an 
affectionate  and  tender  father  whose  children  we  know 
we  are  and  a  severe  hard  hearted  father-in-law  who 
hath  no  share  nor  lot  nor  portion  among  us." 

The  Assemblymen  met  in  no  good  humor.  Not  only 
were  the  excluded  Councillors  high  in  the  estimation 
of  some,  in  fact  of  most,  of  the  Quakers  attending,  but 
John  White,  chosen  a  representative  of  New  Castle 
County  in  the  Assembly,  had  been  committed  to  jail, 
and  was  detained  there.  Blackwell  for  several  days 
telling  the  messenger  of  the  House  that  there  was  no 
quorum  of  the  Council,  the  House  unanimously  resolved 
that  the  exclusion  of  members  of  the  Council  from  that 
body  was  a  grievance  of  the  country;  and  it  also  was 
unanimously  resolved  that  the  detention  in  prison  of 
any  person  chosen  to  the  Assembly  during  the  time  of 
its  session  was  a  breach  of  privilege,  and  that  such 
person  with  the  charge  against  him  should  be  brought 
before  the  House,  that  the  House  could  judge  whether 
the  charge  amounted  to  treason  or  felony.    Therefore 


Government  Under  the  Frame  of  1683.      195 

the  House  issued  a  writ  to  the  Sheriff  of  New  Castle 
to  bring  before  it  the  body  of  John  White,  and  the  cause 
of  his   detaining.     Five   members,   however,    Joseph 
Fisher,  Edward  Blake,  Luke  Watson,  Jr.,  Samuel  Gray, 
and  James  Sandelands,  protested  against  such  a  writ. 
On  the  14th  of  3rd  month,  Blackwell  addressed  the 
Assembly  at  length,  reciting  the  Proprietary's  direction 
to  drop  all  laws  except  the  fundamentals,  the  doubt 
whether  laws  already  passed  or  to  be  passed  could  be 
valid  without  the  great  seal,  the  difficulty  in  getting 
Lloyd  to  affix  the  great  seal — according  to  Blackwell, 
the  Keeper  ' '  refusing  to  allow  the  use  of  it  in  any  cases 
by  my  direction," — and  the  uncertainty  of  the  Pro- 
prietary's position  in  the  state  of  affairs  in  England, 
and  the  danger  to  him  and  the  colonists  of  passing  such 
laws  as  they  wished,  and  the  Proprietary's  reservation 
of  the  confirmation  or  annulling  of  any  laws  passed  in 
his  absence,  so  that  their  execution  must  be  postponed 
until  his  pleasure  should  be  known;  so  Blackwell  an- 
nounced his  intention  of  observing  as  Proprietary  in- 
structions what  had  been  enacted  while  Penn  was  in 
the  province,  unless  contrary  to  the  laws  of  England, 
and  of  supplying  any  defect  therein  by  the  laws  of 
England.    The  House,  by  Arthur  Cooke,  who  had  been 
elected  Speaker,  appears  then  to  have  presented  its 
resolve  as  to  the  grievance  of  not  admitting  the  three 
Councillors.     Blackwell  adjourned  the  Council  to  his 
lodgings,  against  the  wishes  of  certain  members,  who 
set  up  a  joint  power  to  appoint  the  place  of  meeting. 
His  answer  was  that  by  his  commission  and  the  charter 
and  laws,  they  were  to  attend  him ;  not  he,  them.    One 
affirming  that  they  were  not  dealt  with  fairly,  Black- 
well  reproved  him,  saying  that  he,  Blackwell,  was  sorry 
that  the  member  did  not  understand  things  better. 
Three  days  later,  he  submitted  to  a  quorum  of  the 
Councillors  the  question  of  issuing  a  declaration  for 
continuing  the  laws  formerly  passed  by  the  Proprietary 


196  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

himself  until  word  should  come  from  England.  Sim- 
cock  and  Clark  feared,  that,  even  with  such  a  declara- 
tion, justices  would  not  feel  safe  in  doing  anything 
after  the  expiration  of  twenty  days  from  the  end  of  the 
Assembly's  session.  Blackwell  said  that  all  action  by 
the  justices  would  surely  be  confirmed  by  an  act  of  in- 
demnity and  confirmation,  as  government  was  a  neces- 
sity. Growdon  suggested  to  keep  the  laws  alive  by 
agreeing  to  the  Assembly  taking  a  recess,  while  Stock- 
dale  and  Carpenter  said  that  the  Assembly  could,  by 
its  own  power,  take  such  a  recess;  but  Blackwell  said 
that  this  was  in  no  way  countenanced  by  the  Charter, 
the  instructions,  or  the  laws.  Bristow  thought  it  would 
be  well  for  the  Governor  and  Council  and  the  Assembly 
to  join  together  in  a  declaration  to  the  magistrates  that 
the  laws  made  and  confirmed  from  the  beginning  and 
practised,  continue  in  force  until  further  order  from 
the  Proprietary.  This  pleased  Blackwell,  but  was  not 
followed  by  the  Council. 

The  Assemblymen,  adopting  on  the  day  of  this  debate 
in  Council  an  answer  to  the  Lieutenant-Governor's 
speech,  said  that  they  were  credibly  informed  that 
William  Penn  had  changed  his  mind  about  letting  the 
laws  drop,  and,  as  far  as  they  knew,  all  those  passed 
since  his  departure  had  been  sent  for  his  refusal,  and 
none  had  been  declared  void  by  him ;  no  higher  sanction 
was  required  than  what  had  been  accepted  up  to  that 
time  by  the  colony ;  it  was  hoped  that  no  law  would  be 
imposed  upon  them  as  being  made  and  published  under 
the  great  seal  by  the  Proprietary  and  Governor  with 
the  consent  of  the  freemen,  instead  of  as  made  "in  the 
stipulated  way  of  the  Charter  and  Act  of  Settlement;" 
the  representatives  conceived  all  laws  not  adjudged 
void  by  the  King  under  his  Privy  Seal  to  remain  in 
force;  and  they  deemed  inconsistent  with  the  constitu- 
tion the  Deputy's  expedient  of  governing,  unless  with 
the  concurrence  of  the  Council,  by  such  laws  made  be- 


Government  Under  the  Frame  of  1683.      197 

fore  the  Proprietary  returned  to  England  as  Blackwell 
should  think  not  contrary  to  the  laws  of  England, 
because  how  far  the  laws  of  England  were  to  be  the 
rules  had  been  declared  by  the  King's  letters  patent. 

The  Sheriff  of  New  Castle  did  not  obey  the  writ  of 
habeas  corpus  issued  by  the  House,  but  allowed  White 
to  escape.  So  he  came  to  Philadelphia,  and,  on  the 
17th,  took  his  seat.  Yet  Richard  Reynolds  of  New 
Castle,  perhaps  under  a  warrant  from  Markham  as 
Justice,  rearrested  White,  while,  it  seems,  in  the  As- 
sembly room,  and  would  not  take  bail,  but  left  him 
when  the  House  again  unanimously  resolved  that  the 
arrest  of  a  member  or  attendant  during  the  session  ex- 
cept for  treason  or  felony  was  a  breach  of  privilege.  At 
10  o'clock  that  night,  John  Claypoole  (James's  son), 
Sheriff  of  Philadelphia  County,  under  a  warrant  from 
Markham  and  Jones,  broke  into  the  room  in  Benjamin 
Chambers's  house  where  White  was  going  to  bed,  and 
took  him  away.  The  next  morning,  Joseph  Fisher  of 
Philadelphia,  James  Sandelands  of  Chester,  and  John 
Darby  and  Edward  Blake  and  Richard  Mankin  of  New 
Castle,  and  five  of  the  six  members  from  Sussex,  the 
other  member  not  having  attended  at  all,  refused  to 
attend,  apparently  in  expectation  of  the  petition  which 
their  fellow  members  adopted  asking  the  Governor  for 
justice. 

Two  days  later,  there  being  less  than  the  quorum  of 
two  thirds,  the  attending  members  of  Assembly  passed 
censures  upon  Markham,  Jones,  Claypoole,  and  Rey- 
nolds, and  also  upon  Robert  Turner,  who  was  reported 
to  have  signed  the  last  writ  aforesaid,  as  violators  of 
the  privileges  of  the  Assembly  and  betrayers  of  the 
liberties  of  the  freemen.  The  members  also  ordered  a 
writ,  which,  however,  was  never  made  out,  to  bring 
these  censured  persons  before  the  House.  A  number  of 
the  Assemblymen  went  before  the  Governor  and  Coun- 
cil, and  presented  several  papers,  probably  including 


198  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

the  speech  in  reply  to  Blackwell's,  one  apparently  being 
upon  the  non-admission  of  the  three  Councillors,  and  an- 
other being  that  as  to  White's  imprisonment.  Blackwell 
told  the  Assemblymen  that  they  were  not  judges  of  the 
membership  of  the  Council,  and  bade  them  take  back 
their  papers:  Growdon  told  them  not  to.  Blackwell 
then  put  the  papers  in  his  pocket  to  keep  until  he  could 
be  certain  whether  the  Assembly  was  legally  in  being, 
inasmuch  as  it  might  be  said  to  have  fallen  by  the  non- 
attendance  of  a  quorum.  After  Growdon  had  whispered 
to  his  fellow  Quakers,  Yardley  stood  up,  and  said  that 
it  appeared  to  him  that  the  Assembly  had  not  ceased 
to  be.  Then,  speaking  of  himself  and  a  number  of  the 
Councillors,  and  saying  that  they  were  of  a  mean  edu- 
cation, whose  speech  sometimes  appeared  very  rude, 
and  memory  weak,  he  offered  some  views  in  a  folded 
paper,  which  Blackwell,  supposing  it  to  have  emanated 
from  Thomas  Lloyd,  did  not  wish  to  receive.  Some 
debate  arising,  Lloyd,  Eckley,  and  Eichardson  came 
walking  in.  The  Lieutenant-Governor  rose,  and  asked 
what  was  their  pleasure.  Lloyd  replied  that  they  came 
to  pay  their  respects  to  him,  and  to  sit  in  the  Council. 
Blackwell  told  them  that  they  could  not  take  their  seats, 
until  he  and  the  Council  were  satisfied.  Lloyd  refused 
to  withdraw,  and,  after  some  little  hubbub,  Blackwell 
declared  the  meeting  adjourned.  No  further  attempt 
to  meet  was  made  by  the  Assemblymen,  whom  Black- 
well  spoke  of  as  felones  de  se,  or  suicides.  On  3rd  mo. 
(May)  23,  the  Councillors  present  except  Carpenter 
agreed  to  the  issuing  of  a  declaration,  which  was  drawn 
up  by  a  committee  consisting  of  Markham,  Clark,  and 
Yardley.  Simcock  and  Growdon  were  absent.  The 
declaration  was  adopted  and  signed  by  Blackwell  and 
nine  Councillors,  Carpenter  voting  no,  and  not  signing. 
Coppock,  Clark,  Jones,  and  Yardley,  signers,  were 
Quakers.  It  denied  all  intention  of  subverting  the 
Frame  and  the  laws,  and  declared  the  laws  passed  by 


Government  Under  the  Frame  of  1683.      199 

the  Proprietary  and  Council  and  Assembly  before  his 
going  to  England  to  be  in  force  until  orders  from  Eng- 
land should  be  received,  with  the  proviso  or  exception, 
however,  that  the  Governor  might  issue  commissions 
to  the  Provincial  Judges  under  the  lesser  seal. 

News  had  come  about  midnight  of  the  23rd  of  Feb- 
ruary of  the  great  events  in  England  up  to  December 
23,  when  the  person  bringing  the  news  had  sailed  out 
of  the  Downs.  Little  more  was  known  for  some  time. 
In  April,  documents  bore  date  "in  the  fifth  year  of  the 
reign  of  King  James  the  Second."  After  hearing  of 
the  accession  of  William  and  Mary,  the  people  of  New 
Castle  became  dissatisfied  that  the  new  rulers  were  not 
proclaimed,  but  the  Governor  said  that  he  had  no  orders 
for  proclaiming  them,  and  did  not  know  how  it  was 
to  be  done,  having  never  seen  a  proclamation  for  that 
purpose,  and  feared  that  he  might  exceed  or  fall  short 
in  giving  the  proper  titles,  which  would  be  treason  in 
either  case.  The  Council,  on  6mo.  29,  unanimously 
agreed  with  the  Governor. 

On  October  1,  the  Governor  received  a  letter,  dated 
Whitehall,  13  April,  1689,  signed  by  the  Earl  of  Shrews- 
bury, announcing,  by  the  King's  command,  prepara- 
tions for  a  war  with  France.  The  Councillors,  after  a 
long  notice,  were  brought  together  on  November  1st, 
to  consider  what  was  to  be  done,  and  then  decided  that 
it  was  time  to  make  an  acknowledgment  of  the  author- 
ity of  William  and  Mary,  and  to  profess  readiness  to 
proclaim  them  upon  receipt  of  orders  or  a  form  of 
proclamation.  The  next  day,  a  declaration  was  signed 
by  Blackwell  and  ten  Councillors,  acknowledging  the 
new  sovereigns,  commanding  all  Justices  and  officers  to 
act  in  the  new  names,  and  process  to  be  so  issued,  and 
continuing  all  officers  except  Eoman  Catholics,  and 
continuing  all  process  previously  issued.  Then  opened 
a  debate  upon  arming  the  Province.  The  non-Quakers 
thought  notice  should  be  given  to  the  people  to  get 


200  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

arms  and  powder  and  shot.  The  first  Quakers  who 
spoke,  wished  to  await  further  news  before  putting  the 
people  to  such  expense,  or  said  that  there  was  no  danger 
except  from  bears  and  wolves,  or  feared  that  the  neigh- 
bouring Indians  might  take  fright  when  they  saw  the 
population  in  arms,  and  might  start  hostilities:  then 
Samuel  Carpenter  explained  that  he  was  not  against 
those  who  would  undertake  to  defend  themselves,  but,  it 
being  against  the  judgment  of  a  great  part  of  the  people 
and  his  own,  he  could  not  advise  it,  or  express  approval 
of  it,  the  King  must  know  the  judgment  of  Quakers,  but, 
if  they  must  be  forced,  he,  Carpenter,  supposed,  that, 
rather  than  do  it,  they  would  suffer.  Coppock  agreed 
with  him.  Jones  proposed  it  be  left  to  the  Governor's 
discretion.  Simcock  and  Carpenter  prevented  such 
question  from  then  being  put,  saying  that  it  would  be 
prejudicial  to  them  to  be  otherwise  than  passive.  At 
the  next  meeting,  Blackwell  gave  his  opinion  as  to  the 
Frame  limiting  the  Governor  in  the  care  of  the  safety 
of  the  Province  by  making  him  dependent  upon  the 
consent  of  the  Council:  he  argued  that,  by  Acts  of 
Parliament  passed  in  Charles  II  's  reign,  the  King  had 
the  command  of  the  militia,  and  not  the  Parliament,  and 
much  less  could  the  Provincial  Council  of  Pennsylvania 
claim  command,  when  the  King  by  letters  patent  had 
vested  his  authority  in  William  Penn.  Penn's  Charter 
of  1683  to  the  people  was  in  its  very  words  limited 
"as  far  as  in  him  lieth:"  as  it  was  not  in  the  Pro- 
prietary's power  to  subject  part  of  the  King's  do- 
minions to  the  chance  of  being  captured,  therefore  the 
said  Charter  of  1683  could  not  be  so  construed  that  the 
Governor  without  the  Council  could  not  use  arms  to 
defend  the  colony;  furthermore  his  levying  of  troops 
and  making  war  was  a  condition  of  the  grant,  and  a 
failure  to  do  it  might  work  a  forfeiture.  Blackwell 
also  reminded  his  hearers  of  the  power  in  the  Governor 
on  sudden  emergencies  to  make  ordinances.     All  this, 


Government  Under  the  Frame  of  1683.      201 

which  could  be  stretched  to  a  complete  nullification  of 
the  Frame  of  government,  and  which  might  have  caused 
a  long  argument  at  any  other  time,  opened  a  way  of 
escape  to  the  Quakers,  when  Blackwell  proposed  that 
it  be  left  to  his  discretion  to  execute  the  military  powers 
conferred  by  Charles  II  upon  the  Proprietary  as  near 
as  possible  according  to  the  laws  of  England  and  the 
laws  of  the  Province  made  under  the  Duke  of  York. 
The  five  Quakers  forming  the  majority  present,  did 
not  question  the  Governor's  power,  Simcock  saying: 
"It  is  a  thing  too  hard  for  us  to  meddle  with,  and  so 
we  leave  it."  They  expected  the  Governor  to  follow 
his  conscience :  they  would  follow  theirs ;  and  they  de- 
clined to  take  such  a  part  as  voting.  Carpenter,  who 
was  then  or  afterwards  the  richest  man  in  the  colony, 
said:  "I  had  rather  be  ruined  than  violate  my  con- 
science." The  Governor  now  said  that,  as  the  matter 
seemed  left  to  him  by  the  general  voice  of  the  Coun- 
cillors, he  would  act  in  the  best  manner  he  could  for 
the  preservation  of  the  whole,  without  further  pressing 
them  on  this  occasion. 

Blackwell  had  early  asked  to  be  relieved  of  office,  and 
would  have  liked  to  go  home  before  the  end  of  the 
Summer,  but  awaited  the  convenience  of  the  friend  who 
had  appointed  him.  At  last,  in  10th  month,  a  number 
of  belated  letters  and  documents  came  from  Penn.  One, 
dated  6mo.  12,  was  to  the  Councillors,  saying  that  he  had 
thought  fit  to  throw  everything  into  their  hands,  and 
directing  them  to  let  the  laws  they  might  pass  hold  only 
so  long  as  he  should  not  declare  his  dissent.  If  they 
would  prefer  to  have  a  Deputy-Governor,  they  were 
to  name  three  or  five  persons,  fixing  on  a  proper  salary, 
and  the  Proprietary  would  appoint  one  of  them;  this, 
however,  not  to  be  a  precedent.  This  was  modified  by 
a  letter  to  Blackwell  inclosing  two  commissions  dated 
7,  25,  1689,  explaining  to  Blackwell  that  the  Councillors 
should  choose  whichever  they  preferred.    One  was  em- 


202  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

powering  the  Council  to  present  three  names  to  the  Pro- 
prietary, and,  until  his  choice  were  known,  the  person 
having  most  votes  or  first  chosen  was  to  act  as  Deputy 
according  to  the  power  and  limitation  of  former  com- 
missions. The  other  was  appointing  the  whole  body 
as  Deputy  according  to  the  power  and  limitation  of 
former  commissions,  the  body  to  elect  a  President. 
The  Council,  on  llmo.  2,  accepted  the  latter  of  these 
two  alternatives  unanimously,  cancelled  the  commission 
for  choosing  a  single  Deputy,  and  chose  Lloyd  as 
President.  Penn's  feeling  towards  Lloyd  had  been  ex- 
pressed to  Blackwell  thus:  "I  would  be  as  little  rig- 
orous as  possible,  and  do  desire  thee  by  all  the  obliga- 
tion I  and  my  present  circumstances  can  have  upon 
thee  to  desist  ye  prosecution  of  T.  L.  I  entirely  know 
ye  person  both  in  his  weakness  and  accomplishment, 
and  would  thee  end  ye  dispute  between  you  two  upon 
my  single  request  and  command  and  that  former  in- 
conveniences be  rather  mended  than  punished.  Salute 
me  to  ye  people  in  generall,  pray  send  for  J.  Simcock, 
A.  Cook,  John  Eckley,  and  Samuel  Carpenter,  and  let 
them  dispose  T.  L.  and  Sa.  Eichardson  to  that  comply- 
ing temper  that  may  tend  to  that  loving  and  serious 
accord  yt  becomes  such  a  government."  Blackwell  re- 
mained some  time  in  the  province  after  leaving  office, 
his  age  and  constitution  making  it  unfit  that  he  should 
take  at  that  season  of  the  year  so  long  a  journey  as 
to  Boston.  On  lmo.  31,  1690,  Lloyd  was  unanimously 
reelected  President,  the  Council  having  been  changed 
by  the  election  of  Griffith  Owen,  Arthur  Cooke,  John 
Blunston,  John  Cann,  John  Brinckloe,  and  Thomas 
Clifton,  in  place  of  Carpenter,  Growdon,  Bristow, 
Alricks,  Markham,  and  Hill  respectively,  and  by  the 
election  of  Thomas  Duckett,  in  place  of  Eckley,  who 
had  died.  Blunston  declining,  William  Howell  was 
elected  on  2,  22,  1690,  but  declared  himself  incapable, 
and  appears  never  to  have  served.    The  Council  sue- 


Government  Under  the  Frame  of  1683.      203 

ceeded  in  having  laws  passed,  and  undid  what  they 
could  of  Blackwell  's  work.  Nevertheless  the  feeling  of 
the  Quaker  leaders  against  those  who  had  acted  against 
White  and  Lloyd,  or  had  not  supported  the  measures 
proposed  in  the  House,  was  not  appeased.  The  resolu- 
tions as  to  breaches  of  privilege  were  passed  in  1690 : 
while  the  acts  complained  of,  being  committed  by  those 
representing  Delaware  sentiment,  had  something  to  do 
with  the  breach  of  the  following  year. 

The  impost  granted  to  William  Penn  in  1683,  being 
2d.  per  gal.  on  strong  liquor,  Id.  on  cider,  and  one  per 
cent,  on  all  other  goods  imported,  had  met  with  oppo- 
sition from  those  who  were  to  pay  it,  and  on  11,  2, 
1689-90,  a  letter  was  read  from  the  Proprietary  men- 
tioning that  there  was  6001.  due  to  him  which  had  been 
neglected  or  refused  to  be  paid,  and  asking  that  the 
sum  be  made  up  by  the  colony  building  a  house  for 
him  on  his  city  lot,  or  putting  stock  to  the  extent  of 
2001.  on  each  of  the  three  plantations  for  his  children. 
The  impost  was  discontinued  in  1690,  Samuel  Car- 
penter, John  Songhurst,  Griffith  Jones,  and  others 
undertaking  to  pay  the  lump  sum  of  £600  as  a  com- 
position.   This,  however,  failed  to  be  paid. 

The  persons  and  descendants  of  persons  who  had 
settled  on  the  Bay  and  River  before  Penn  received  his 
title,  had  stood  by  Blackwell,  and  were  disgruntled  by 
the  reestablishment  of  the  Quaker  clique  at  the  head  of 
affairs,  and  perhaps  were  alarmed  for  the  safety  of 
the  colony  with  non-resistants  in  control.  The  Quakers 
of  the  Lower  Counties,  moreover,  were  estranged,  like 
the  other  inhabitants  living  so  far  from  Philadelphia, 
by  the  want  of  consideration  for  them.  The  Pennsyl- 
vania Councillors,  when  the  appointment  of  officers  for 
the  Lower  Counties  came  up,  voted  for  and  elected 
whomsoever  they  saw  fit,  without  regard  to  the  wishes 
of  the  members  present  from  the  locality.  The  expense 
and  loss  of  time  in  coming  to  Philadelphia  often  caused 


204  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

the  absence  of  Councillors  from  a  distance.  The  coming 
to  Philadelphia  to  attend  court  was  also  onerous.  Penn 
had  wisely  provided  a  Supreme  Court  for  the  whole 
dominion  to  hear  appeals,  and  try  capital  offences,  with 
five  Judges,  of  whom  two  were  to  go  every  Spring  and 
Fall  into  the  five  counties,  besides  three  of  the  Judges 
holding  two  sessions  a  year  in  Philadelphia.  At  the 
next  Assembly  after  his  departure,  the  Court  for  hear- 
ing appeals  and  trying  murders  &ct.  was  made  station- 
ary at  Philadelphia,  so  that  some  persons  would  be 
obliged  to  travel  one  hundred  and  forty  miles.  Most 
of  the  representatives  of  the  Lower  Counties  had  op- 
posed this,  but  it  had  been  carried,  it  was  said,  by 
the  influence  of  a  leading  man  of  the  Upper  Counties. 
In  May,  1690,  the  going  of  the  circuit  by  any  two  of 
five  Provincial  Court  Judges  was  ordered  by  Act  of 
Assembly:  The  appointment  of  the  five  Judges,  how- 
ever, was  delayed  in  Council ;  so  that  no  court  was  held 
in  the  Lower  Counties  that  Fall,  although  there  was  at 
least  one  person  suspected  of  murder  in  each  of  these 
Counties.  By  the  trouble  in  constituting  courts  and 
neglect  by  authorities,  and  probably  by  some  inclination 
in  Quakers  to  pity,  and  a  shrinking  on  their  part  from 
putting  anybody  to  death,  a  widow  in  Sussex  Co., 
committed  to  prison  in  1688,  but  bailed,  on  the  charge  of 
murdering  her  bastard  child,  was  not  brought  to  trial, 
and  about  a  year  later,  being  suspected  of  murdering 
another,  still  remained  at  large  and  untried,  and  was 
employed  as  a  servant  when,  in  February,  1690-1.  she 
was  delivered  of  another  bastard,  which  also  died  ap- 
parently by  her  hand.  Somebody  reproached  Thomas 
Lloyd  for  the  failure  of  justice,  and  reasoned  with  him 
as  follows:  if  she  had  suffered  for  the  first  murder, 
she  would  not  have  committed  the  two  last ;  if  she  had 
been  cleared  of  the  first,  she  could  then  have  been  at 
liberty  to  marry  and  live  honestly  and  bring  up  chil- 
dren, as  she  did  in  her  husband's  lifetime,  which  would 


Government  Under  the  Frame  of  1683.      205 

also  have  prevented  the  two  last  murders.  Certain 
Councillors  from  the  Lower  Counties  decided  to  remedy 
the  want  of  Provincial  Judges  in  that  region,  and  on 
9,  21,  1690,  without  having  a  meeting  formally  called 
by  President  Lloyd,  because  in  a  well  attended  Council 
the  Pennsylvanians  were  likely  to  make  a  majority, 
Clark,  Watson,  Jones,  Brinckloe,  Cann,  and  De  Haes 
met  at  New  Castle,  and  ordered  two  commissions  of  five 
Judges,  the  names  being  the  same  in  each,  but  one  com- 
mission, covering  Pennsylvania,  naming  Simcock  first, 
and  the  other,  covering  the  Lower  Counties,  naming 
Clark  first.  On  application  to  Lloyd  as  Keeper,  he 
refused  to  affix  the  great  seal,  and  a  meeting  attended 
by  Pennsylvanians  declared  the  proceedings  void.  The 
matter  was  compromised  by  the  Council  adopting  the 
plan  of  a  Pennsylvanian  and  a  Delawarean  heading  the 
Court  in  his  respective  half  of  the  dominion.  So  strong 
was  the  feeling  in  the  Lower  Counties  that  no  repre- 
sentatives from  the  same  were  chosen  to  the  Assembly 
of  1691,  although  Richard  Halliwell,  George  Martin, 
and  Albertus  Jacobs  were  chosen  to  the  Council. 

On  1  month  30,  1691,  there  were  submitted  for  the 
Council's  choice  two  new  commissions  from  the  Pro- 
prietary, one  for  the  Council  to  name  three  persons 
from  whom  Penn  would  appoint  a  Deputy-Governor, 
the  person  having  most  votes  to  act  until  Penn's 
pleasure  were  known,  the  other  commission  for  Lloyd, 
Markham,  Turner,  Jennings,  and  Cann  or  any  three  of 
them  to  act  as  Deputy.  It  is  said  that  Penn  indicated 
his  preference  for  the  latter  arrangement.  He  also 
gave  notice  that  if  a  single  Deputy  were  decided  upon, 
the  colony  was  to  bear  his  support.  If  neither  commis- 
sion were  accepted,  the  government  was  to  remain  in 
the  whole  Council.  The  members  from  Pennsylvania 
were  unanimous  for  a  single  executive,  but  those  from 
the  Lower  Counties  declared  against  it,  being  unwilling 
to  charge  their  people  with  a  salary  for  such  an  officer, 


206  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

particularly  one  who  would  reside  in  Philadelphia. 
They  perceived  a  design  of  the  others,  who  were  a 
majority  of  those  in  attendance,  to  choose  Lloyd,  giv- 
ing to  that  self-willed  individual  the  power  to  put  in 
and  turn  out  what  officers  he  saw  fit.  The  five  Com- 
missioners were  more  agreeable  to  the  Delawareans, 
Cann  being  one  of  themselves,  Markham  very  accept- 
able to  them,  and  Turner  not  under  the  control  of  Lloyd 
and  Jennings.  The  Delawareans  asked,  if  that  arrange- 
ment were  not  chosen,  then  that  the  authority  of  the 
whole  Council  be  continued,  otherwise  they  would  se- 
cede. On  this  day,  David  Lloyd,  Clerk  of  Philadelphia 
County,  issued  a  writ  in  an  action  for  a  debt  against 
one  of  the  Councillors  from  the  Lower  Counties:  his 
fellow  representatives  thought  this  a  scheme  to  prevent 
his  attendance.  At  the  next  meeting,  ten  members 
being  present,  Thomas  Lloyd  in  the  chair,  Growdon 
suddenly  called  for  those  in  favor  of  nominating  Lloyd, 
Cooke,  and  John  Goodson  for  Deputy-Governor  to  rise 
and  say  "yea."  Whereupon  the  Delawareans,  protest- 
ing that  the  charter  required  two  thirds  as  a  quorum 
and  a  two  thirds  vote  in  "affairs  of  moment,"  with- 
drew. The  others  made  the  nomination  aforesaid,  and, 
after  some  hesitation  by  Lloyd,  he,  being  the  one  having 
most  votes,  was  proclaimed  Deputy-Governor  on  April 
2.  On  the  4th,  Cann,  Clark, — who,  the  reader  will  note, 
was  a  Quaker, — Brinckloe,  Halliwell,  Hill,  Martin,  and 
Jacobs,  claiming  that  the  governorship  was  still  in  the 
Council,  met  at  New  Castle,  and  chose  Cann  as  Presi- 
dent. Lloyd  tried  to  win  these  back,  offering  that  the 
pay  of  himself  under  the  commission  should  not  be  a 
charge  upon  the  Lower  Counties  until  desired  by  their 
representatives ;  but  in  vain,  the  seceders  not  only  dis- 
liking the  influence  of  David  Lloyd  upon  all  Judges 
whom  Thomas  Lloyd  might  appoint,  but  being  now  in- 
censed at  being  stigmatized  as  traitors,  and  charged 
with  wishing  to  throw  their  territory  into  the  hands  of 


Government  Under  the  Frame  of  1683.      207 

New  York.     The  latter  thought,  they  disclaimed  in  a 
letter  to  Perm. 

On  petition  of  the  "inhabitants  and  settlers"  of  the 
town  of  Philadelphia,  "being  some  of  the  first  adven- 
turers and  purchasers  within  this  Province,"  the  said 
town  was  erected  into  a  borough — if  the  charter  of  1691 
means  that  there  had  been  such  action  previously. 
Lloyd  as  Deputy  Governor,  with  the  advice  and  consent 
of  the  Provincial  Council,  on  3mo.  (May)  20,  1691, 
erected  said  town  and  borough  into  a  City  to  extend 
to  the  limits  and  bounds  as  it  was  laid  out  between  the 
Delaware  and  Schuylkill.  This  charter  appointed  until 
the  first  annual  election  Humphrey  Morrey  as  Mayor, 
John  Delaval  as  Recorder,  and  David  Lloyd  as  Town 
Clerk  and  Clerk  of  the  Courts  to  be  held  within  the 
City  and  Liberties,  and  Samuel  Richardson,  Griffith 
Owen,  Anthony  Morris,  Robert  Ewer,  John  Holmes,  and 
Francis  Rawle  Jr.,  then  Justices,  who  were  citizens  and 
inhabitants  of  said  City,  as  the  Aldermen,  and  Samuel 
Carpenter,  Thomas  Budd,  John  Jones,  John  Otter, 
Charles  Sanders,  Zechariah  Whitpaine,  John  Day, 
Philip  Richards,  Alexander  Berdsley,  James  Fox, 
Thomas  Pascall,  and  Philip  James,  as  the  Common 
Councilmen,  with  power  to  acquire  and  sell  real  estate, 
the  Mayor,  Recorder,  Aldermen,  and  Common  Council- 
men  to  choose  annually  from  the  inhabitants  persons 
to  fill  said  offices.  The  Mayor,  Recorder,  and  Aldermen 
were  to  be  Justices  of  the  Peace  and  Oyer  and  Terminer 
in  the  City  and  Liberties,  and  the  Mayor,  Recorder,  and 
one  Alderman  were  to  hear  and  determine  all  causes 
arising  therein  civil  and  criminal  except  treason,  mur- 
der, and  manslaughter,  reserving  appeal  according  to 
the  King's  patent  and  the  laws  of  the  Province.  Power 
was  given  to  make  and  enforce  laws,  ordinances,  &ct. 
for  the  government  of  the  City  not  repugnant  to  the 
laws  of  England  or  Pennsylvania,  and  to  impose  fines, 
and  keep  the  same  for  the  use  of  the  corporation. 


208  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

In  the  time  of  Lloyd's  presidency  occurred  the  first 
and  for  a  long  time  greatest  employment  of  force  by 
Quaker  rulers.  Caleb  Pusey,  in  Satan's  Harbinger 
Encountered,  minimizing  the  charge  of  inconsistency, 
relates  that  Peter  Babbitt  with  some  accomplices  stole 
a  sloop,  and  took  her  down  the  river ;  then  three  magis- 
trates issued  a  warrant  in  the  nature  of  a  hue  and  cry ; 
and,  Samuel  Carpenter,  the  owner  of  the  sloop,  stood 
on  the  wharf,  and  encouraged  the  volunteers  by  offer- 
ing 1001.  reward;  so  Peter  Boss  and  a  party  of  men 
started  in  pursuit,  and  captured  both  the  vessel  and  the 
robbers,  although  it  was  said  that  Boss  and  party  had 
neither  "gun,  sword,  or  spear."  That  a  minister  and 
two  other  Quakers  acting  as  magistrates  gave  a  com- 
mission to  fight,  will  be  shown  in  the  next  chapter  to 
have  caused  animadversion. 

The  Assemblymen  chosen  from  Philadelphia,  Bucks, 
and  Chester  Counties  were  convened  in  7th  month, 
1691,  under  a  law  referring  all  matters  not  otherwise 
provided  for  concerning  the  Province  to  the  Governor 
and  freemen  thereof.  This  Assembly  continued  the 
laws  until  the  next  session. 

Penn  received  the  letters  of  both  the  Pennsylvania 
and  the  Delaware  Councillors  in  7th  month ;  and,  on  the 
11th,  within  a  day  or  so  of  the  time  when  he  is  alleged 
to  have  escaped  to  France,  he  wrote  to  the  whole  num- 
ber of  Councillors,  begging  them  to  forgive  each  other, 
and  to  choose  again  in  a  full  meeting.  Taking  up  the 
grievances,  he  said  that  it  was  not  well  to  reject  peti- 
tions, it  was  not  discreet  knowingly  to  arrest  David 
Lloyd,  the  Assembly's  clerk,  but  that  body  by  the 
Frame  had  no  clerk  other  than  the  Clerk  of  the  Pro- 
vincial Council,  and  it  was  wrong  in  the  Council  to 
choose  the  Deputy  without  a  quorum  of  two  thirds. 
This  letter  went  by  way  of  Maryland,  enclosed  to 
Richard  Johns,  and  was  sent  by  Ralph  Fishbourn  to 


Government  Under  the  Frame  of  1683.      209 

those  for  whom  it  was  intended,  and  reached  them  on 
April  12,  1692. 

About  the  beginning  of  1692,  however,  Penn  commis- 
sioned Thomas  Lloyd  as  Lieutenant-Governor  of  Penn- 
sylvania, and  Markham  as  Lieutenant-Governor  of  the 
Lower  Counties;  so  that  this  division  lasted  until  the 
arrival  of  Governor  Fletcher.  The  representatives  of 
all  six  counties  united  in  1692  in  one  Assembly,  but  that 
body  had  a  conflict  with  the  Council  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  none  of  the  laws  suggested  by  the  Councillors  pre- 
sided over  by  Lloyd  and  Markham  respectively  were 
passed.  For  the  years  1691, 1692,  and  1693,  the  minutes 
of  the  Council  are  wanting.  The  following  new  mem- 
bers appear  to  have  been  among  the  representatives  of 
Pennsylvania  proper :  William  Jenkins,  Samuel  Levis, 
William  Biles,  Hugh  Eoberts,  and  Richard  Hough, 
while  the  Pennsylvania  Archives,  Vol.  I,  show  the  elec- 
tion of  Richard  Wilson  in  1st  mo.,  1692,  from  Kent,  and 
Samuel  Gray  appears  in  that  year  as  a  Councillor  from 
the  Territories,  probably  from  Sussex. 


14 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Religious  Dissension. 

The  Quakers  without  a  standard  of  belief — 
George  Keith — His  contentions  with  members  of 
the  Society — Separate  meetings — Written  judg- 
ment against  him  and  replies  thereto — Arrest  of 
Bradford  and  McComb,  seizure  of  Bradford's  tools, 
and  proclamation  against  Keith — The  Yearly 
Meeting  of  1692 — Liability  of  Keith  to  punish- 
ment under  the  civil  laws — His  arraignment  with 
that  of  Boss,  Budd,  Bradford,  and  McComb — Hat 
incident — The  rest  of  the  Court  proceedings — Re- 
lief granted  by  the  Governor  under  the  Crown — 
Keithians  issue  exhortation  against  negro  slavery 
— The  Yearly  Meeting  in  London  disowns  Keith — 
His  services  in  the  Turners'  Hall,  London,  and  de- 
cision to  join  the  Established  Church — Subsequent 
course  of  various  Keithians — Welsh  Baptists — 
Lower  Dublin — Seventh  Day  Baptist  burying- 
ground  in  the  city — Trinity  Church,  Oxford — 
Upper  Providence  Keithians  and  rival  congrega- 
tions formed  among  them — Philadelphia  Keithian 
Meeting — Thomas  Eutter — Dispute  as  to  the  prop- 
erty— The  Lloydians — Triumph  of  Orthodoxy  in 
the  Society  of  Friends. 

The  Society  of  Friends  had  never  promulgated  ar- 
ticles of  religion  to  be  subscribed,  or  a  eatechisni  to  be 
taught.  Peculiar  tenets  and  practices,  which  presup- 
posed the  truth  of  much  of  what  Western  Europe 
believed,  were  recognized  as  Quakerism:  but  the  pref- 
atory and  even  basic  dogmas,  while  they  might  be 
gathered  from  writings  like  Barclay's,  were  left  to  the 


Religious  Dissension.  211 

individual  conscience,  directed  by  an  inner  revelation. 
There  was  no  insisting  upon  even  those  creeds  which 
have  been  called  the  symbols  of  Christianity,  and  which 
Fox  and  the  majority  of  his  followers  had  accepted 
together  with  the  historical  statements  of  the  Gospels. 
Fox  had  flouted  at  training-schools  for  ministers,  even 
at  making  them  familiar  with  Hebrew,  Greek,  and 
Latin.  Thus,  with  hearers  ignorant  of,  or  with  no  pre- 
dilection towards,  what  was  agreed  upon  by  Roman 
Catholic,  Calvinist,  Lutheran,  Greek,  and  Anglican, 
there  was  a  diversity  of  teaching  in  the  bond  of  fellow- 
ship, which  is  delightful  in  the  view  of  many  people 
of  to-day.  There  does  not  seem  to  have  been  any  con- 
siderable movement  to  give  a  Unitarian  interpretation 
to  the  New  Testament.  John  Gough's  History  of  the 
People  called  Quakers  says  that  George  Whitehead, 
William  Mead,  and  other  English  Friends,  on  exami- 
nation before  Parliament,  gave  satisfactory  statement 
of  their  belief  in  the  Trinity  as  well  as  Holy  Writ,  so 
that  the  profession  of  faith  required  by  the  Act  of 
Toleration  then  passed  was  put  in  the  words  suggested 
by  them — a  strange  way,  indeed,  of  stating  the  Trinity 
— viz:  "I,  A.  B.  do  profess  faith  in  God  the  Father 
and  in  Jesus  Christ  his  eternal  Son,  the  true  God,  and 
in  the  Holy  Spirit,  one  God  blessed  for  evermore ;  and 
do  acknowledge  the  Holy  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  to  be  given  by  Divine  Inspiration." 
Yet  there  had  been,  and  there  lingered  in  that  body  of 
exalters  of  their  personal  intuition  a  tendency  to  make 
figurative  or  to  forget  the  Bible's  story,  and,  from  the 
expressions  of  some  prominent  members,  it  seemed  at 
times  that  they  were  lapsing  into  Deism.  The  great 
opposition  which  Christian  theologians,  Presbyterians, 
Episcopalians,  and  Congregationalists,  made  to  the 
Society  of  Friends  in  the  last  third  of  that  Century 
was  more  conscientious  than  a  desire  for  soldiers,  for 
tithes,  or  even  for  observance  of  the  sacraments:  it 


212  Chronicles  op  Pennsylvania. 

was  loyalty  to  external  Revelation.  The  reproaches 
cast  upon  the  Society  that  its  teachers,  if,  indeed,  they 
did  not  reject,  at  least  failed  to  hand  down,  their  de- 
posit of  truth,  seemed  to  many  people  to  be  justified 
by  the  events  now  to  be  mentioned,  when  a  party  taking 
a  stand  for  Orthodoxy  declined  to  hold  meetings  with 
the  majority  of  the  ministers  at  Philadelphia,  and  when, 
moreover,  the  Yearly  Meeting  in  London  expelled  the 
leader  of  that  party, 

George  Keith,  one  of  the  most  eminent  preachers  and 
controversialists  of  the  Society,  long  felt  the  need  of 
some  sort  of  confession  of  faith,  probably  almost  as 
much  to  answer  the  jibes  of  non-Quakers,  as  to  control 
or  teach  Quakers.  In  fact,  the  occasion  of  his  urging 
the  matter  in  the  Philadelphia  meeting  was  the  accusa- 
tion made  by  Christian  Lodowick  in  Rhode  Island 
that  the  Quakers,  giving  another  sense  to  the  words 
of  Scripture,  denied  the  true  Christ.  Keith  had  gone 
to  Rhode  Island  to  assist  other  Friends  in  disputation. 
No  impression  seeming  to  be  made  by  the  spoken 
avowal  of  positive  or  literal  faith,  Keith  and  others,  in 
4th  month,  1691,  wrote  a  declaration  of  the  belief  of 
the  Friends  in  certain  points  of  elementary  Orthodoxy 
as  to  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  of  Nazareth.  Apparently 
it  was  another  one  of  Keith's  productions,  printed  in 
1692,  which  he  submitted  to  the  Philadelphia  Monthly 
Meeting  of  11th  month,  1691,  and  approval  of  which 
was  expressed  at  the  next  Monthly  Meeting  by  three  of 
the  six  appointed  to  examine  it.  The  Rhode  Island 
Meeting  directed  the  printing  of  the  aforesaid  confes- 
sion, and  it  was  printed  by  Bradford  in  Philadelphia. 
The  leaders  in  Penn's  great  town  went  so  far  as  to 
find  fault  with  Bradford  for  doing  this,  they  never 
having  authorized  the  publication  of  that  much  of  a 
creed. 

It  is  necessary  not  only  to  mention  the  Keithian 
schism,  because  it  was  an  important  incident  in  the  his- 


Religious  Dissension.  213 

tory  of  the  colony,  but  to  go  into  considerable  detail, 
because,  with  the  exception  of  Gough,  the  Quaker 
writers  and  those  who  have  echoed  them,  have  told 
little  except  of  the  bad  temper,  violent  language,  and 
self-will  of  Keith.  He  certainly  had  the  natural  indig- 
nation of  a  zealot,  he  was  habituated  to  the  bitterness 
of  expression  of  that  age,  in  which  the  Quakers  had 
been  about  as  bitter  as  others,  and  he  carried  out  the 
sectarian  idea  of  separating  from  those  teaching  what 
is  false.  The  schismatics  from  whom  he  separated,  by 
that  time,  however,  had  formed  themselves  into  what 
they  believed  to  be  a  Church,  and  thought  schism  from 
it  to  be  a  sin;  and  their  preachers  had  begun  to  be 
separate  as  clergy  from  the  laity.  Gough 's  account  is 
not  entirely  accurate  in  details,  apart  from  being  pretty 
much  a  sermon  upon  two  texts  put  at  the  end,  viz :  the 
statement  that,  on  lmo.  16,  1713-4,  Keith,  as  he  lay 
sick  in  bed,  said  that  he  did  believe  that  if  God  had 
taken  him  out  of  the  world  when  he  went  among  the 
Quakers,  and  in  that  profession,  it  had  been  well  with 
him;  and  the  statement  that,  a  couple  of  years  later, 
to  a  Quaker  visiting  Keith,  when  on  his  death-bed,  he 
said  that  he  wished  he  had  died  when  a  Quaker,  for  he 
was  sure  that  it  would  have  been  well  for  his  soul — 
remarks  which  were,  after  all,  different  from  saying 
that  he  had  done  wrong  in  leaving  the  latitudinarians 
controlling  the  Society  of  Friends,  and  did  not  even 
involve  the  unimportance  of  the  sacraments,  for  he  had 
received  them,  water-baptism,  as  he  mentions,  and  al- 
most as  certainly  the  bread  and  wine  before  becoming 
a  Quaker.  Both  Robert  Barclay  and  he  had  shown 
themselves  not  wholly  satisfied  with  the  Quakers'  dis- 
continuance of  a  religious — we  may  say  eucharistic, 
but  not  sacramental — feast ;  and,  before  Keith  received 
the  Communion  from  the  Church  of  England,  he  prac- 
tised the  rite,  as  well  as  that  of  baptism,  among  the 


214  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

seceding  Quakers  who   attended  him.     Some  of   the 
Scotch  Quakers  were  then  practising  a  feast. 

Keith  was  born  in  the  vicinity  of  Aberdeen,  Scotland, 
and  graduated  at  Marischal  College,  intending,  it  is 
supposed,  to  be  a  minister  of  the  Scottish  Kirk.  He 
was  converted  to  Quakerism  in  or  before  1664,  when 
he  suffered  the  first  of  his  many  imprisonments  in  its 
cause.  He  assisted  Robert  Barclay  in  disputations, 
succeeded  Christopher  Taylor  in  the  school  at  Edmon- 
ton, and  was  Surveyor-General  of  East  Jersey.  Bp. 
Burnet,  acquainted  with  Keith  at  College,  claimed  that 
he  was  the  most  learned  member  of  the  Society  of 
Friends.  He  came  to  Philadelphia  in  1689,  and  for 
over  a  year  had  charge  of  the  school  chartered  by  Penn, 
retiring  from  it  on  4mo.  ]0,  1691. 

Keith,  who,  by  his  far  superior  prominence  in  the 
Society  at  large,  could  without  presumption  aspire  to 
the  leadership  of  the  members  in  America,  first  ruffled 
his  new  neighbours  by  projects  for  changing  their  dis- 
cipline. Gough  says  that  Keith  proposed  some  regu- 
lations to  the  ministers  at  the  Yearly  Meeting,  but,  on 
the  latter  wishing  to  ask  the  Yearly  Meeting  in  London, 
decided  to  let  the  matter  drop.  He  then  undertook  to 
correct  by  Orthodox  standards  the  loose  preaching 
which  he  was  hearing  at  Meetings.  In  attempting  to 
restrain  the  tendency  to  allegorize  the  New  Testament, 
he  overhauled  William  Stockdale  for  preaching  "Christ 
within"  to  the  exclusion  of  the  historic  Christ.  Going 
beyond  this  elementary  reform,  Keith  insisted  on  doc- 
trines well  accepted  by  contemporary  theologians,  but 
of  which  probably  his  fellow  ministers  present  had 
never  heard,  while  he  indulged  in  speculations  which 
perhaps  they  did  not  comprehend.  Jennings  reported 
afterwards  to  the  Quakers  in  England  that  the  question 
on  which  so  many  took  the  negative  was  the  universal- 
ity of  the  need  of  faith  in  the  historic  Christ  for  salva- 
tion.    Keith  had   formerly  taken   the  negative,   but, 


Religious  Dissension.  215 

changing,  suggested  at  one  time  that  the  heathen  might 
acquire  that  faith  in  some  future  state,  and  suggested 
at  another  time  that  the  "inner  light"  could  give  an 
unconscious  faith.  In  short,  Keith  undertook  to  direct 
in  doctrine  and  procedure  the  Friends  of  Pennsylvania. 
How  troublesome  certain  of  them  were  in  secular  affairs, 
this  history  elsewhere  shows ;  while  as  to  Jennings,  who 
had  recently  moved  from  West  Jersey,  his  course  there 
may  have  been  conscientious,  but  he  was  once  elected 
Governor  of  that  province,  and  his  election  declared 
by  Quaker  arbitraters  an  infringement  of  Byllinge's 
right.  It  was  difficult  enough  to  teach  a  group  of  the 
most  independent  religious  thinkers.  Those  with  whom 
Keith  was  concerned,  were  the  most  important  part 
of  the  Society  of  Friends  politically,  and  felt  them- 
selves a  chosen  people.  At  their  head  as  Clerk  of  the 
Quarterly  Meeting  of  Ministers,  enabling  him  to  mould 
the  expression  of  the  sense,  was  Jennings ;  and  nothing 
could  be  done  among  the  Philadelphia  Friends  which 
did  not  commend  itself  to  Thomas  Lloyd,  while  any 
confession  of  faith  would  abridge  the  liberty,  or  contra- 
dict the  views,  of  some  old  preacher  or  "martyr." 
Lloyd  (see  Roberts's  letter  in  Penna.  Mag.  of  Hist.,  Vol. 
XVIII,  p.  205)  did  not  antagonize  Keith  until  he  in- 
sisted upon  a  declaration  of  faith.  There  were  some 
leaders  who  actually  had  cast  aside  many  of  the  older 
and  widely  prevalent  beliefs.  In  the  Reasons  and 
Causes  of  the  Separation,  written  by  Keith  or  his 
friends,  it  is  said  that  the  doctrine  of  Christ's  being 
in  Heaven  in  the  true  nature  of  man,  and  of  faith  in 
Him  being  necessary  to  our  perfect  justification  and 
salvation,  and  of  His  coming  again,  outside  of  us,  to 
judge  the  quick  and  the  dead,  and  of  the  resurrection 
of  the  dead  and  day  of  judgment  were  called  by  some 
"Popery,"  and  by  others  "Presbyterian  and  Baptist 
principles."  With  the  leaders,  the  resentment  excited 
by  Keith's  various  propositions,  and,  with  the  more 


216  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

docile,  the  feeling  that  he  was  troublesome,  obscured 
the  greater  issue  which  was  raised  when  he  criticized 
theological  expressions,  and  was  met  with  statements 
and  questions  which  until  some  time  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  would  not  have  been  tolerated  in  any  so-called 
Christian  Church.  Some  of  those  who  refused  to  fol- 
low Keith,  including  Lloyd,  had  no  intention  of  com- 
mitting themselves  to  Rationalism,  particularly  after  a 
letter  was  received  from  George  Whitehead,  Patrick 
Livingston,  and  other  London  Friends  deprecating  dis- 
putations upon  subjects  not  tending  to  edification,  and 
affirming  salvation  through  Christ  to  those  who  never 
heard  of  Him,  but  urging  all  not  to  reject  Jesus  Christ's 
outward  coming,  suffering,  death,  resurrection,  ascen- 
sion, and  glorified  state  in  the  heavens. 

Those  who  had  been  reproved  by  Keith,  attacked  him 
in  return.  Stockdale  criticized  Keith's  speaking  so 
much  of  Christ  within  and  Christ  without  as  preaching 
two  Christs,  or  as  letting  people  infer  two  distinct 
Christs.  The  Plea  of  the  Innocent,  in  contradiction  to 
the  Quarterly  Meeting  of  the  following  year  about  the 
violation  of  Gospel  order,  says  that  Keith  did  privately 
deal  with  Stockdale,  and  then  laid  the  matter  before 
twelve  of  the  ministers,  who,  except  John  Hart,  and  ex- 
cept John  Delaval,  rather  excused  Stockdale.  Calling 
Stockdale  an  ignorant  heathen,  Keith  asked  judgment 
against  him  for  making  the  criticism,  or  charge,  and, 
receiving  no  answer,  laid  the  matter  before  the  Yearly 
Meeting  held  in  Philadelphia  in  7th  month,  1691. 
Keith  afterwards  made  a  great  point  that  that  as- 
sembly of  preachers  of  the  Gospel  debated  for  about 
ten  hours  one  day,  and  at  five  subsequent  "meetings," 
i.e.  sittings,  whether  preaching  Christ  without  and 
Christ  within  was  preaching  two  Christs,  and  then 
came  to  "a  slender  and  partial  judgment,"  of  which 
they  made  no  record.  Nevertheless,  a  declaration  was 
made  that  Stockdale  was  blameworthy,  because  Keith's 


Religious  Dissension.  217 

doctrine  was  true.  On  llmo.  29,  1691,  at  the  Monthly 
Meeting,  Thomas  Fitzwater  charged  Keith  with  deny- 
ing the  sufficiency  of  the  light  within  for  salvation. 
This  insinuated  that  Keith  could  no  longer  be  properly 
classified  as  a  Quaker.  Gough  is  not  accurate  in  his 
account  of  the  Fitzwater  episode.  At  the  next  Monthly 
Meeting,  12nio.  26,  1691,  to  which  Fitzwater  had  prom- 
ised to  bring  his  proof,  Stockdale  came  forth  as  a 
witness  in  support  of  Fitzwater,  but  other  Friends 
testified  that  Keith  had  denied  the  sufficiency  "without 
something  more,"  meaning  the  death  and  mediation 
of  Christ.  After  Jennings,  the  Clerk,  and  other  op- 
posers  of  Keith,  had  retired  from  the  assemblage, 
those  remaining,  including  Fitzwater,  unanimously 
agreed  to  adjourn  to  the  next  day  at  the  8th  hour  at 
the  school  house,  the  usual  place  of  holding  meetings 
in  winter.  Lloyd  and  Cooke,  but  not  Jennings,  at- 
tended this  adjourned  meeting,  as  did  Fitzwater.  How- 
ever, there  being  strong  contention,  all  three  went 
away.  Stockdale  was  sent  for,  but  declined  to  come. 
Those  present,  numbering  about  sixty,  including  min- 
isters and  "those  in  the  habit  of  attending  monthly 
meetings,"  then  unanimously  agreed  to  a  judgment 
signed  by  J.  W.  (Qu:  Joseph  Willcox?),  whom  they 
constituted  Clerk,  to  the  effect  that  Fitzwater  should 
forbear  to  preach  until  he  gave  a  writing  condemning 
his  charge  against  Keith,  and  satisfying  as  to  his  own 
true  faith  and  belief  in  Christ's  resurrection  and 
Christ's  being  in  Heaven  in  his  glorified  human  nature ; 
and  also  to  the  effect  that  Stockdale  forbear  to  preach 
until  he  condemn  his  unrighteous  charge  against  Keith 
of  preaching  two  Christs.  Furthermore,  the  opinion 
was  given  that  the  book  vindicating  the  Christian  faith 
of  the  Quakers  of  Rhode  Island  was  for  good,  and  for 
the  service  of  truth,  and  that  Bradford  should  not  be 
discouraged  for  printing  it.  With  a  misprint  giving 
date  of  the  meeting  as  2nd  month  instead  of  12th  month, 


218  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

the  names  of  ' '  some  of  the  Friends  that  gave  the  afore- 
said judgment,"  to  the  number  of  forty-five  are  in 
print,  viz:  George  Hutcheson,  Thomas  Winn  (evi- 
dently Dr.  Thomas  Wynne,  Speaker  of  the  Assembly) 
Thomas  Budd,  Paul  Saunders,  John  Hart,  Thomas 
Hooton,  John  Lynam,  Anthony  Taylor,  Thomas  Pas- 
chall,  Ralph  Jackson,  Abel  Noble,  Humphrey  Hodges, 
Phillip  James,  Nicholas  Pearce,  Henry  Furnis,  Richard 
Hillyard,  John  Furnis,  Anthony  Sturges,  John  Red- 
man, Robert  Wallis,  Thomas  Peart,  John  Williams, 
Thomas  Jenner,  Thomas  Tresse,  Ralph  Ward,  William 
Davis,  John  Loftus,  William  Dillwyn,  Francis  Cook, 
William  Harwood,  John  Duploveys,  Henry  Johnson, 
James  Chick,  John  Budd,  Joseph  Walker,  Thomas 
Morris,  William  Bradford,  Hugh  Derborough,  John 
McComb,  William  Paschall,  William  Say,  John 
Hutchins,  Joseph  Willcox,  William  Hard,  and  James 
Cooper. 

At  the  Quarterly  Meeting  held  at  the  beginning  of 
March,  1691-2,  a  few  days  after  this,  it  was  asked  that 
this  judgment  be  recorded  in  the  Monthly  Meeting 
book,  but  the  other  party  denied  that  those  who  gave 
the  judgment  constituted  a  legal  Meeting,  inasmuch  as 
there  was  no  precedent  for  an  adjourned  Monthly 
Meeting,  and  as  the  Clerk  had  gone,  and  few  ministers 
were  present.  Moreover,  this  party  asserted  that,  as 
the  subject  of  the  charge  against  the  ministers  Fitz- 
water  and  Stockdale  was  a  matter  of  doctrine,  it  could 
not  be  judged  by  a  Monthly  Meeting,  but  only  by  a 
meeting  of  ministers.  However,  it  was  agreed  that  the 
adjourned  meeting  was  legal,  but  that  an  appeal  had 
been  taken  from  its  decision.  Keith  was  then  told  that 
he  should  submit  to  a  judgment  by  the  present  Meet- 
ing. This  curtailment  of  the  right  of  private  judgment, 
so  much  talked  of  by  Protestants,  was  denied  by  Keith, 
as  giving  the  ministers  the  teaching  powers  of  a  sacer- 
dotal order.    He  would  say  only  that  he  would  submit 


Religious  Dissension.  219 

to  the  judgment  "of  the  spirit  of  truth  in  Friends." 
When  asked  to  leave  pending  discussion,  he  refused  to 
do  so,  unless  about  seven  or  eight  of  his  opposers  also 
absented  themselves,  and,  they  not  doing  this,  the  sub- 
ject was  not  taken  up.  As  the  policy  of  the  leaders  was 
to  smother  discussion,  and  to  shield  comrades  whose 
views  the  majority  themselves  thought  erroneous,  there 
was  really  no  inaccuracy  in  Keith's  remark,  made  at 
this  time,  that  the  ministers  opposed  to  him  had  "met 
together,"  that  is  had  come  intending,  "to  cloak 
heresies  and  deceits." 

The  subject  at  bottom  was  and  is,  however,  one  as  to 
which  Patrick  Henry's  words  at  the  beginning  of  the 
American  Revolution  are  appropriate,  even  if  some 
readers  would  emphasize  the  first  word:  "Gentlemen 
may  cry,  peace,  peace — but  there  is  no  peace."  These 
criers  of  "peace"  undertook  to  silence  Keith's  tongue. 
Accordingly,  two  members  were  appointed  to  admonish 
him  to  retract  at  the  next  Quarterly  Meeting ;  but,  when 
they  visited  him,  he,  feeling  himself  a  champion  of  the 
truth,  said  that  there  were  "more  damnable  heresies 
and  doctrines  of  devils  among  the  Quakers  than  among 
any  profession  of  Protestants, ' '  and  that  he  trampled 
"the  judgment  of  the  Meeting  under  his  feet  as  dirt." 

At  the  Monthly  Meeting  held  on  March  25, 1692,  some 
of  his  opponents  proposed  to  change  the  hour  and  place 
of  meetings  for  worship  established  for  the  Winter. 
This  was  objected  to  by  several  of  the  Keithian  faction, 
but  was  agreed  to  by  the  majority,  and  declared 
adopted.  Although  Lloyd  and  his  party  accordingly 
went  the  next  morning  to  the  meeting-house  at  the 
Centre,  the  followers  of  Keith,  claiming  that  the  change 
contravened  the  principle  of  unanimity  by  which  all 
Quaker  proceedings  were  to  be  conducted,  met  at  the 
usual  time  and  place,  and  did  not  unite  with  the  others 
in  the  afternoon  at  the  Bank  Meeting  House  (Front 
above  Arch),  a  few  of  them  holding  a  private  gathering 


220  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

at  Keith's  house.  Subsequently  they  attempted  to  go 
to  the  house  on  the  bank  in  the  morning,  but  found  the 
doors  locked  against  them. 

With  the  fair  claim  that  the  others  were  the  aggres- 
sors, but  on  the  broad  basis  of  duty  not  to  unite  in 
worship  with  those  who  rejected  the  truth,  arose  the 
"Christian  Quakers,"  as  they  called  themselves,  or 
"Separatists,"  or  * l Keithians, "  as  the  others  called 
them.  Out  of  the  sparse  population  of  the  country  and 
the  small  number  of  dwellers  in  the  great  towne,  hun- 
dreds nocked  to  hear  Keith,  wherever  he  was  expected 
to  preach.  Persons  of  other  religious  antecedents 
joined  these  Separatists,  so  that  Keith  prepared  a  con- 
fession of  faith.  Outside  of  Philadelphia,  the  sense  of 
many  of  the  regular  meetings  was  Keithian :  and  Joseph 
C.  Martindale,  M.D.,  in  his  History  of  the  Toivnships  of 
Byberry  and  M  or  eland,  asserts  that,  at  one  time  which 
he  does  not  clearly  indicate,  Keith's  followers  had  the 
ascendency  in  sixteen  out  of  thirty-two  Meetings.  Ap- 
parently the  latter  number  covers  the  Meetings  pre- 
viously established  for  worship  on  one  or  both  sides  of 
the  Delaware. 

Yet  the  Keithians,  soon  after  the  beginning  of  the 
separation,  put  themselves  on  record  as  attempting  an 
accommodation.  Fifteen  made  in  writing  an  offer  for 
restoration  of  unity  and  the  oblivion  of  all  hard  words, 
if  the  others  would  bring  their  erroneous  ministers  to 
a  confession  of  error,  and  would  declare  certain  funda- 
mental doctrines.  Through  the  influence  of  two  visit- 
ing Friends  from  England,  a  conference  was  held  on 
3mo.  14,  between  the  ministers  then  in  town  and  an 
equal  number  of  Keithians,  but,  the  matter  not  being 
settled,  T.  B.  and  W.  B.  (Thomas  Budd  and  William 

Bradford)   wrote  the  next  day  to  T and  A 

(evidently  Thomas  Lloyd  and  Arthur  Cooke),  for  an- 
other meeting.  This  brought  no  reply,  and  Keith  did 
not  help  the  cause  of  harmony,  but  was  thought  a  dis- 


Religious  Dissension.  221 

turber,  by  going  to  the  afternoon  meeting  on  the  22nd, 
and  expressing  a  desire  to  have  the  breach  healed. 
Two  of  the  opposite  side  came  to  Keith's  meeting,  and 
declared  their  testimony  against  him.  The  Monthly 
Meeting  of  3rd  mo.  26,  1692,  controlled  by  Keith's 
enemies,  disposed  of  the  Fitzwater  matter  by  letting 
him  off  with  an  apology  for  his  "rash  spirit  in  making 
the  charge"  against  Keith  of  denying  the  sufficiency 
of  the  Light  Within  without  something  more,  which 
charge  Fitzwater,  however,  said  was  true;  and  no 
affirmance  of  belief  was  made  in  the  paper  given  forth. 
The  ministers  in  Quarterly  Meeting  judged  Stock- 
dale  on  4mo.  4,  1692 ;  the  paper  signed  by  Jennings  as 
Clerk  reproved  him  for  "uttering  new  words  offensive 
to  many  sound  and  tender  persons, ' '  but  blamed  Keith 
for  violating  Gospel  order  in  not  dealing  with  Stock- 
dale  alone  before  prosecuting  the  complaint,  and  for 
his  "indecent  expression"  to  Stockdale.  Keith  not 
appearing  to  retract  what  he  said  about  "cloaking 
heresies  and  deceits,"  and  the  persons  sent  by  the  last 
Quarterly  Meeting  to  admonish  him  reporting  his 
words  about  "doctrines  of  devils,"  and  about  tramp- 
ling "the  judgment  of  the  Meeting  under  his  feet,"  a 
second  committee  was  sent  to  him,  and  the  Meeting 
adjourned  for  a  fortnight.  The  second  committee, 
obtaining  no  satisfaction,  prepared  a  testimony,  to  be 
published  after  he  should  have  an  opportunity  to  read 
it,  for  which  they  were  obliged  to  wait  four  or  five  days 
later.  The  Meeting,  on  reconvening,  forbade  him  to 
preach,  and  the  declaration  was  published  against  him, 
dated  4mo.  20,  1692,  and  signed  by  the  twenty-eight 
"public  friends"  following: 
Thomas  Lloyd  William  Cooper 

John  Willsford  Thomas  Thackory 

Nicholas  Wain  William  Biles  (printed 

William  Watson  "Byles") 

George  Maris  Samuel  Jennings 


222  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Thomas  Duckett  John  Delaval 

Joshua  Fearne  William  Yardley  (printed 

Even  Morris  "Yeardly") 

Richard  Walter  Joseph  Kirkbride 

John  Symcock  Walter  Fawcit 

Griffith  Owen  Hugh  Roberts 

John  Bown  Robert  Owen 

Henry  Willis  William  Walker 

Paul  Sanders  John  Lynam 

John  Blunston  George  Gray. 

Certain  of  these  twenty-eight  signers  went  from 
Meeting  to  Meeting  to  deliver  the  judgment.  On  4mo. 
27,  Lloyd,  Jennings,  and  Delaval  with  Samuel  Richard- 
son went  to  Frankford  Monthly  Meeting  to  give  counte- 
nance to  the  reading  of  the  judgment,  Lloyd  speaking 
against  Keith  for  "imposing  unscriptural  words,"  i.e. 
asking  belief  according  to  theological  terms.  This 
judgment  could  not  have  been  received  at  Frankford 
Monthly  Meeting  with  unanimous  satisfaction;  for 
Martindale's  History  says  that  John  Hart  controlled 
the  constituent  First  Day  Meeting  at  Byberry  in 
Keith's  favor,  and  in  time  drove  the  opposing  atten- 
dants of  Byberry  to  secede. 

The  friends  and  followers  of  Keith  in  Philadelphia 
were  not  overawed.  In  protest  against  the  judgment, 
Peter  Boss  wrote  two  letters  to  Jennings.  The  first 
receiving  no  notice,  Boss  kept  a  copy  of  the  second, 
to  insure  an  answer  to  it.  It  was  clearly  scurrilous  in 
saying  that  the  twenty-eight  would  have  been  better 
employed  in  inquiring  whether  Jennings  or  Simcock 
had  been  drunk  on  certain  occasions,  and  also  it  was 
scurrilous  in  Quaker  eyes  in  similarly  insinuating  that 
Jennings  had  once  made  a  bet  on  the  speed  of  his  horse. 
The  letter  was  not  put  in  print  until  after  Boss  had 
been  tried  for  defaming  a  magistrate.  Keith  and 
Thomas  Budd  wrote  a  Plea  for  the  Innocent,  signing  it 
on  behalf  of  themselves  and  other  Friends  of  their 


Religious  Dissension.  223 

Meeting.  Extenuating  and  justifying  Keith's  use  of 
bad  names  to  his  opponents,  and  telling  of  the  bad 
names  which  they  gave  to  him,  the  Plea  was  very  severe 
on  Jennings,  and  said  much  more  besides  calling  him 
"an  ignorant,  presumptuous,  and  insolent  man"  and 
"too  high  and  imperious  both  in  Friends  meetings  and 
worldly  courts";  expressions  for  which  Keith  and 
Budd  were  indicted  as  contravening  an  Act  of  Assembly 
that  no  words  of  defamation  be  spoken  against  a  magis- 
trate. An  answer  to  the  judgments  was  issued  "on 
behalf  of  brethren  who  are  falsely  called  the  Separate 
meetings  at  Philadelphia,"  maintaining  that,  by  the 
first  judgment  of  Monthly  Meeting,  those  making  it 
had  declared  themselves  no  true  believers  in  Christ 
Jesus,  and  so  the  answerers  could  not  own  them  as 
Christians,  nor  join  with  them  in  worship.  This  answer 
was  dated  5mo.  3,  1692,  at  a  meeting  at  the  house  of 
Philip  James,  and  signed  by 

Richard  Dungworth  John  Loftus 

John  Wells  John  McComb 

Phillip  James  James  Chick 

Henry  Furnis  John  Bartram 

James  Shattuck  Abel  Noble 

James  Cooper,  Sen.  Joseph  Walker 

William  Davis  Thomas  Paschall 

Robert  Wallis  Richard  Hilliard 

James  Poulter  William  Waite 

Nicholas  Pierce  Anthony  Sturges 

Thomas  Budd  Ralph  Ward 

John  Barclay  Thomas  Peart 

William  Bradford  John  Chandler 

James  Cooper,  Junr.  Peter  Chamberlain. 

This  answer  was  followed  by  an  Appeal  to  the  Yearly 
Meeting.  The  Appeal  was  signed  by  Keith,  Budd, 
Dungworth,  George  Hutcheson,  John  Hart,  and  Abra- 
ham Opdegraves,  and  offered  to  have  tried  by  two  or 
three  impartial  men  twelve  questions,  whether  Keith's 


224  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

"reviling  words"  were  not  true,  and  whether  the  ex- 
pressions and  certain  practices  of  his  enemies  were  not 
condemnable.  The  9th  of  these  questions  was  based 
upon  the  use  of  force  against  Babbitt  and  his  men,  as 
mentioned  in  the  last  preceding  chapter,  and  inquired 
whether  the  twenty-eight  condemners  of  Keith  had  not 
better  have  condemned  some  of  themselves  for  hiring 
men  to  fight,  commissioning  them,  as  one  preacher  had 
done,  and  so,  by  force  of  arms,  recovering  a  sloop,  and 
taking  privateers.  There  will  be  little  doubt  that  the 
hiring  of  men  to  fight,  and  the  providing  of  Indians  with 
powder  and  lead  to  fight  other  Indians,  against  which 
practices  the  10th  question  was  directed,  was  incon- 
sistent with  the  peace  principles  of  Friends.  Question 
No.  11  was  whether  it  was  according  to  the  Gospel  that 
ministers  should  pass  sentence  of  death  on  malefac- 
tors, as  some  had  done,  ' '  preaching  one  day  not  to  take 
an  eye  for  an  eye,  .  .  .  another  day  taking  life 
for  life?"  In  this  connection,  it  may  be  remarked  that 
the  bishops  in  the  English  House  of  Lords  do  not  ad- 
judge matters  of  treason  or  capital  crime.  This  11th 
question,  which  may  have  been  suggested  by  Opde- 
graves,  a  former  Mennonite,  brought  forward  the  diffi- 
culty in  conscience  which  had  induced  Quakers  else- 
where and  all  Mennonites  to  keep  aloof  from  admin- 
istering secular  government.  Bradford,  the  printer, 
having  taken  side  with  Keith,  printed  this  Appeal. 

Thereupon  began  proceedings  which  amounted  to 
religious  persecution  by  indirection,  although  it  took 
the  form  of  prosecution  for  slander,  and  for  unlicensed 
use  of  the  press,  and  could  be  justified  if  the  acts  of 
some  modern  judges  of  our  own  day  in  punishing  for 
contempt  of  court  can  be.  Those  whose  conduct  had 
been  animadverted  upon  in  this  published  Appeal,  who 
probably  had  previously,  in  another  situation,  contended 
for  liberty  of  conscience  and  of  the  press,  now  per- 
suaded themselves  that  bitter  words  against  magis- 


Religious  Dissension.  225 

trates  uttered  in  religious  controversy,  and  questions 
whether   their   executing   offices   was   consistent   with 
their  principles,  tended  to  overthrow  the  government. 
They  proceeded  against  the  printer.     A  warrant  was 
signed  by  Samuel  Richardson  and  Robert  Ewer,  Jus- 
tices; and  the  Sheriff  and  a  constable  entered  Brad- 
ford's shop,  and  seized  all  the  copies  of  the  Appeal 
which  could  be  found,  and  took  Bradford  before  the 
Justices.    John  McComb,  who  was  alleged  to  have  cir- 
culated two  copies,  was  also  arrested.     Refusing  to 
give  security  to  answer  at  the  next  court,  Bradford  and 
McComb  were  committed  to  jail  by  warrant  dated  Aug. 
24,   1692,    signed   by   Justices    Cooke,   Jennings,    and 
Humphrey  Morrey,  as  well  as  Robert  Ewer.     On  an- 
other warrant,  Bradford's  house  was  searched,  and  his 
type  taken  away.     The  day  after  the  commitment  of 
Bradford    and    McComb,    Justices    Cooke,    Jennings, 
Richardson,  Morrey,  Ewer,  and  Anthony  Morris  asked 
the  only  Justices  who  were  not  Quakers,  viz:    Lasse 
Cock,  a  Swede,  and  John  Holmes,  a  Baptist,  to  join 
in  taking  steps  against  "the  seditious  and  dangerous," 
but  Cock  and  Holmes  told  their  five  colleagues  that  the 
whole  matter  was  a  religious  difference,  and  did  not 
relate  to  the  government.    Holmes  asked  them  to  send 
for  Keith,  and  offered  to  join  them  if  it  then  appeared 
that  Keith  struck  at  the  government.    This  not  being- 
done,  Cock  and  Holmes  withdrew.     The  others  then 
issued  a  proclamation  describing  Keith  as  a  seditious 
person  and  enemy  to  the  King  and  Queen's  government, 
in  that  Keith  had  publicly  reviled  Thomas  Lloyd,  the 
Deputy-Governor,  calling  him  an  impudent  man,  telling 
him  that  he  was  not  fit  to  be  Governor,  and  that  his 
name  would  stink,  and  in  that  Keith  had  misrepresented 
the  industry,  care,  readiness,  and  vigilance  of  some 
magistrates  and  others  in  the  proceedings  against  some 
privateers.    The  point  was  made  in  the  document  that 
to  grant  that  it  was  inconsistent  for  ministers  of  the 

15 


226  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

gospel  to  act  as  magistrates,  would  render  the  "Pro- 
prietary incapable  of  the  powers  given  him  by  the 
King's  letters  patent,  and  so  prostitute  the  validity  of 
every  act  of  government  more  especially  in  the  execu- 
tive part  thereof  to  the  courtesie  and  censure  of  all 
factious  spirits."  After  explaining  that  the  procedure 
against  those  in  the  Sheriff's  custody,  and  what  was 
intended  against  others,  respected  only  the  tendency 
to  sedition  and  disturbance,  and  did  not  relate  to  dif- 
ference in  religion,  the  proclamation  warned  against 
giving  countenance  to  any  contemners  of  authority,  and 
against  further  publishing  of  the  pamphlet  called  the 
Appeal.  It  is  declared  in  New  England's  Spirit  of 
Persecution  Transmitted  to  Pennsilvania  that  Keith 
never  spoke  the  aforesaid  words  except  in  Monthly 
Meetings  and  religious  controversies,  and  that  Lloyd 
had  several  times  said  that  he  would  take  no  advantage 
of  what  was  being  said. 

Bradford  and  McComb  asked  for  a  trial  at  the  ap- 
proaching term  of  Court,  but  the  case  was  continued 
until  December,  and  McComb 's  license  to  keep  an  inn 
was  revoked.  Meanwhile  Bradford  retired  from  his 
employment  of  printing  for  Friends.  The  restraint 
upon  the  two  was  indeed  relaxed  by  the  Sheriff: 
McComb 's  wife  lying  ill,  he  was  let  off  daily,  and  even 
at  night,  to  visit  her,  and  afterwards  both  he  and  Brad- 
ford were  allowed  to  go  about  their  business,  on  giving 
their  word  to  appear.  But  they  or  their  advisers  saw 
the  dramatic  effect  of  their  writing  a  statement  from 
prison,  so,  having  prepared  a  statement  to  the  public, 
they  went  to  the  Sheriff's  house,  which  served  as  jail, 
and  which  communicated  by  a  common  entry  with  the 
house  adjoining,  and,  the  Sheriff  being  out,  so  that  they 
could  get  in  no  further,  they  signed  their  names  in  the 
entry.  With  more  frankness,  to  show  the  unfairness  of 
the  claim  that  the  Appeal  was  subversive  of  govern- 
ment, the  three  judgments  complained  of  by  Keith,  the 


Eeligious  Dissension.  227 

Answer,  and  the  Appeal  were  then  printed  in  one 
pamphlet.  The  Appeal  was  set  up  on  posts  in  Phila- 
delphia nine  days  before  the  time  appointed  for  the 
Yearly  Meeting. 

The  Yearly  Meeting  was  held  that  year  in  Burlington 
on  the  4th,  5th,  6th,  and  7th  days  of  7th  month.  It  is 
evident  that  those  who  gave  the  judgment  appealed 
from,  were  not  willing  to  submit  the  subject  to  the 
general  company  of  Friends  attending :  Keith,  if  given 
the  opportunity  to  make  a  speech,  was  to  be  feared. 
He  and  his  supporters  conferred  together  in  the  Court 
House,  and  sent  to  the  Meeting  a  paper  asking  for  an 
answer  to  the  Appeal,  or  requesting  their  adversaries 
to  allow  a  fair  hearing  before  impartial  Friends  an 
hour  after  the  close  of  the  meeting  for  worship  on  the 
second  day  of  meeting.  The  messenger  found  the  door 
of  the  meeting-house  crowded,  with  the  object,  he  sup- 
posed, of  keeping  out  the  Keith  party;  whereupon  the 
messenger  got  up  into  the  window,  and  stood  there 
while  he  read,  probably  both  letter  and  Appeal,  nor  did 
he  desist  when  Thomas  Janney  started  to  pray,  which 
the  Keithians  believed  to  be  an  expedient  to  stop  the 
reading.  It  is  not  necessary  here  to  examine  the  ques- 
tion, who  had  the  standing  to  be  considered  in  adjourn- 
ing the  sittings,  or  taking  the  action  of  Yearly  Meetings. 
Many  who  claimed  impartiality,  as  not  having  been 
concerned  actually  on  either  side,  met  at  the  time  Keith 
desired  for  a  hearing.  Lloyd  and  his  party  were  then 
sent  for,  but  refused  to  come,  and  those  in  attendance 
adjourned  until  an  hour  after  the  public  meeting  the 
next  day.  Then  Lloyd  and  his  party  again  refused  to 
come.  Then  or  on  the  previous  day  some  ministers 
came  to  offer  a  hearing  on  the  last  day  of  the  Meeting, 
but  these  were  sent  away,  because  Keith  would  not 
agree:  he  knew  that  the  large  attendance,  on  which 
he  depended  for  victory,  would  not  continue  so  long. 
The  following,  who  may  have  included  a  number  of  New 


228 


Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 


Jersey  ministers,  then  declared  Lloyd  and  his  party  in 
default,  and  proceeded  to  hear  Keith,  and  decided  in 
his  favor : 


Robert  Turner 
Elias  Burling 
John  Reid 
Charles  Read 
Thomas  Coborne 
Harmon  Updengraves 
Thomas  Powell 
Nathaniel  Fitzrandal 
Joseph  Richards 
Edmund  Wells 
Thomas  Kimber 
Edward  White 
Thomas  Gladwin 
Thomas  Rutter 
Edward  Smith 
Benjamin  Morgan 
Joseph  Sharp 
William  Thomas 
John  Bainbridge 
John  Snowden 
AVilliam  Black 
William  Snowden 
Nathaniel  Walton 
Robert  Roe 
Peter  Boss 
Thomas  Bowles 
William  Budd 
James  Silver 
Samuell  Taylor 
Griffith  Jones 
William  Righton 
Thomas  Kendall 
Samuell  Houghton 
John  Neall 
Anthony  Woodward 


Andrew  Smith 
William  Hixon 
John  Pancoast 
Henry  Burcham 
Thomas  Hearse 
John  Jones 
Joseph  Willcox 
Thomas  Godfrey 
John  Budd 
Roger  Parke 
Caleb  AVheatly 
Abraham  Brown 
John  Hampton 
Daniel  Bacon 
Joseph  Adams 
Edward  Guy 
Bernard  Devonish 
Samuel  Ellis 
Thomas  Cross 
James  Moore 
Thomas  Jenner 
John  Harper 
Robert  Wheeler 
Emanuel  Smith 
Peter  Daite 
Richard  Sery 
George  Willcox 
William  Wells 
Isaac  Jacobs  Van  Biber 
Cornelius  Scivers 
William  Snead 
David  Sherkis 
John  Carter 
Henry  Paxon 
Thomas  Tindal. 


Religious  Dissension.  229 

They  signed  as  from  the  Yearly  Meeting,  on  behalf  of 
themselves  and  "many  more  Friends  who  are  one  with 
us  herein,"  a  declaration  that  Keith  and  his  friends 
were  not  guilty  of  the  division  leading  to  the  setting 
up  of  separate  meetings,  that  Lloyd  and  the  rest  of 
the  twenty-eight  should  recall  their  paper  of  condemna- 
tion, and  condemn  the  same  in  writing,  and  that  the 
public  Friends  charged  with  misdemeanors  and  ill  be- 
havior should  forbear  speaking  in  public  meetings 
until  they  cleared  themselves.  The  declaration,  or  de- 
cision, with  the  signatures  was  printed:  a  reprint  of 
the  whole  is  in  Mrs.  Thomas  Potts  James's  Memorial 
of  Thomas  Potts.  We  are  more  familiar  with  other 
forms  of  some  of  the  surnames,  such  as  Fitz  Randolph 
(now  Randolph  of  Phila.  and  N.  J.),  Updengraff,  van 
Bebber,  &ct.  A  Confession  of  Faith,  probaly  the  one 
prepared  by  Keith,  as  before  mentioned,  was  also 
issued  under  date  of  7mo.  7,  1692.  It  was  subsequently 
printed  by  Bradford.  It  appears  that  those  remaining 
in  attendance  at  the  meeting-house  either  treated 
Keith's  appeal  as  not  prosecuted  before  them,  or  for- 
mally confirmed  the  judgment  against  him,  the  latter 
action  being  mentioned  by  Gough.  A  contrite  letter 
dated  11,  31,  1692,  from  Caleb  Wheatly,  aforesaid 
signer  in  favor  of  Keith,  saying  that  he  had  been  blinded 
by  fond,  foolish  affection  for  Keith,  is  printed  by 
Gough. 

As  hinted  in  the  Justices'  proclamation,  Keith  could 
be  caught  under  Chapter  XXVIII  of  the  Great  Law 
of  1682,  that  any  person  convicted  of  speaking,  writing, 
or  any  act  tending  to  sedition  or  disturbance  of  the 
peace  should  be  fined  not  less  than  20s.,  or  else  under 
Chapter  XXIX,  that  any  person  convicted  of  speaking 
slightingly  or  carrying  himself  abusively  against  any 
magistrate  or  person  in  office  should  suffer  acording  to 
the  quality  of  the  magistrate  and  nature  of  the  offence, 
but  not  less  than  a  fine  of  20s.  or  ten  days  imprison- 


230  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

ment  at  hard  labor.  Both  of  these  statutes  allowed 
much  latitude  to  the  judges  imposing  sentence,  although 
Chapter  XXVIII  did  not  admit  of  imprisonment,  ex- 
cept as  resulting  from  non-payment  of  a  heavy  fine, 
whereas  Chapter  XXIX  contemplated  a  severe  pun- 
ishment when  the  magistrate  in  question  was  the  high- 
est officer  in  the  Province,  as  was  Thomas  Lloyd.  It 
seems  straining  the  meaning  to  say  that  putting  to 
death  was  authorized.  Overt  acts  of  sedition,  rioting, 
&ct.  seem  to  have  been  so  punishable,  by  the  laws  of 
England  in  this  regard  not  having  been  superseded. 
As  to  one  who  had  done  more  than  print  or  circulate 
a  pamphlet,  or  write  a  scurrilous  letter,  it  was  to  be 
expected,  from  the  tone  of  the  proclamation,  that  in 
some  process  or  proceeding  emanating  from  them  or 
other  members  of  their  party  invested  with  the  author- 
ity, there  would  be  the  formal  charge  of  sedition.  We 
can  not  suppose  that  there  was  any  likelihood  of  Keith 
suffering  death,  but  the  possibility  of  it  was  not  only 
set  forth  by  him,  some  years  later,  apparently  as  a 
claim  to  hearing  and  consideration,  but,  indeed,  was 
mentioned  by  his  old  antagonist,  Rev.  Cotton  Mather, 
before  Keith's  statement,  at  least  the  one  known  to  the 
present  writer,  appeared.  Mather  said  in  his  Decen- 
niam  Luctuosum,  printed  in  Boston  in  1699  (reprinted 
in  Narratives  of  Indian  Wars  1675-1699) :  "  'tis  verily 
thought  that  poor  George  would  have  been  made  a 
sacrifice  to  Squire  Samuel  Jennings  and  the  rest  of  the 
Pennsylvania  dragons  [is  there  an  allusion  to  St. 
George  and  the  dragon?] ;  and  that  since  a  crime  which 
their  laws  had  made  capital  was  mentioned  in  the 
mittimus  whereby  Keith  was  committed,  they  would 
have  hang'd  him,  if  a  revolution  upon  their  government 
had  not  set  him  at  liberty."  Keith's  statement  was 
' '  I  was  presented  by  a  grand  jury  at  Philadelphia,  and 
the  presentment  would  have  been  prosecuted  if  the 
government  had  not  been  changed,  and  I  had  been  ac- 


Religious  Dissension.  231 

cused  for  endeavoring  to  alter  the  government,  which 
is  capital  by  their  law,  and  they  would  have  found  me 
guilty  of  death,  had  they  not  been  turned  out  of  the 
government,  tho'  I  was  innocent,  and  when  I  objected 
against  the  jury,  they  would  not  suffer  one  of  the  jury 
to  be  cast."    Perhaps  he  meant  the  Grand  Jury. 

The  actual  proceedings  in  the  County  Court,  as  far 
as  ascertained,  were  as  follows.  Boss,  Budd,  Keith, 
Bradford,  and  McComb,  having  been  indicted  by  the 
grand  jury  of  Philadelphia  County,  were  arraigned 
for  trial  in  December,  1692.  The  Justices  sitting 
through  the  proceedings  were  Jennings,  Cooke,  Rich- 
ardson, Ewer,  Henry  Waddy,  and  Griffith  Owen, 
Quakers,  and  Holmes,  the  Baptist,  but  Turner,  a 
Keithian,  attended  on  the  10  and  12th  of  the  month, 
and  Cock,  the  Swede,  and  Anthony  Morris  attended  on 
the  12th.  When  Bradford  and  McComb,  apparently  the 
first  ones  to  be  tried,  appeared,  a  Justice  upraided 
them  for  "standing  so  before  the  Court."  McComb 
said  "You  can  order  our  hats  taken  off."  Probably 
the  Quaker  Justices  did  not  proceed  to  such  incon- 
sistency. About  thirty  years  after  this,  when,  as 
Chancellor  of  the  Court  of  Equity,  Sir  William  Keith 
— no  near  relative  of  George — ordered  John  Kinsey's 
hat  to  be  taken  off,  strong  exception  was  taken  to  such 
interference  with  Quaker  custom,  and,  on  the  next  day, 
the  Chancellor  made  an  order  that  thenceforth,  in  the 
Courts  of  the  Province,  every  man  should  remain 
covered  or  uncovered  according  to  his  persuasion.  We 
may  here  recall  the  story  which  Miss  Strickland,  in 
her  Queens  of  England,  tells  of  King  James  II,  when, 
for  the  first  time  after  his  accession,  receiving  William 
Penn.  Penn  came  with  his  hat  on,  whereupon  the  King 
took  off  his  own,  and,  on  Penn  being  surprised,  naively 
remarked  that  it  was  the  custom  in  that  place  for  ' '  only 
one  man  to  wear  a  hat." 

The  vindication   of  the   dignity   of  Lloyd   and  the 


232  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Quaker  ministers  in  the  judiciary  was  not  left  in  the 
hands  of  impartial  men,  and,  in  the  proceedings  in 
Court,  there  was  a  neglect  of  the  proprieties  which 
only  the  scarcity  of  lawyers,  judges,  and  jurors  dis- 
connected with  the  controversy  can,  as  to  some  points, 
excuse.  The  public  prosecutor,  or  Attorney-General, 
John  Moore,  being  an  adherent  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, David  Lloyd  was  appointed  to  conduct  the  prose- 
cution. Jennings  sat  on  the  bench  with  the  other 
Judges,  even  in  the  trial  of  Boss,  although  refraining 
from  joining  in  the  judgment,  or  the  fixing  of  the  fines. 
Keith  made  a  speech,  but  declined  to  plead  in  form, 
and  was  marked  "Nihil  dicit;"  the  others,  particularly 
Boss,  putting  themselves  on  trial,  excepted  to  the 
Quakers  on  the  jury  as  prejudiced,  some  especially  so, 
against  Keith  and  all  who  favored  him,  but  the  major- 
ity of  the  Judges  would  not  allow  the  exceptions, 
although  the  Baptist  Judge  wished  to ;  and  one  of  the 
twenty-eight  who  signed  the  paper  of  condemnation 
against  Keith,  and  against  whom  Boss's  letter  was 
written,  actually  sat  on  this  jury.  However,  to  the 
credit  of  Quakers  be  it  spoken,  the  jurors,  or  at  least 
enough  to  control  the  verdict,  were  rather  scrupulous, 
and  gave  a  verdict  satisfactory  to  the  prosecution  only 
in  the  case  of  Boss,  whom  they  found  guilty  of  trans- 
gressing the  XXIXth  Chapter  of  the  Law.  He  was 
accordingly  fined  6Z.,  in  default  of  paying  which  he 
remained  a  prisoner  until  after  the  change  of  govern- 
ment. In  Budd  's  case,  the  jury,  after  sitting  all  night, 
found  him  simply  guilty  of  saying  that  Jennings  be- 
haved himself  too  high  and  imperiously  in  worldly 
courts.  It  was  claimed  that  this  was  no  conviction  on 
the  indictment.  However,  Budd  was  fined  5/.  Brad- 
ford, denying  that  the  Appeal  was  seditious,  asserted 
the  advanced  principle  that  the  jury  must  find  both 
that  it  was  seditious,  and  that  he  had  printed  it.  This 
protection  to  liberty  was  not  allowed:  a  majority  of 


Religious  Dissension.  233 

the  Judges  declared  that  whether  it  was  seditious  was 
a  question  for  the  Judges,  and  that  all  the  jury  had  to 
do  was  to  say  whether  he  had  printed  it.  To  prove 
that  fact,  his  printing  frame  was  sent  to  the  jury  after 
he  had  retired,  without  it  being  exhibited  in  open  court. 
The  jurors  in  this  case  remained  out  forty-eight  hours, 
and  then  came  in  to  ask  a  question,  and  were  sent 
back,  according  to  the  barbarous  method  of  forcing  a 
decision, — it  was  Winter, — without  meat,  drink,  fire,  or 
tobacco.  In  the  afternoon,  they  returned  and  said  that 
they  could  not  agree,  and  were  discharged.  McComb 
appears  to  have  been  acquitted  or  discharged;  for 
Gough  says  that  he  afterwards  was  so  just  as  to  give 
a  true  state  of  the  case.  Budd  and  Keith  asked  for  an 
appeal  to  the  Provincial  Court,  but  this  was  denied. 
They  then  asked  for  an  appeal  to  the  King  and  Queen 
under  the  Vth  article  of  the  Charter  to  Penn.  This, 
too,  was  denied,  Justice  Robert  Turner  dissenting,  as 
he  had  done  on  several  points.  However  guilty  the 
various  accused  had  been  of  discrediting  the  civil  gov- 
ernment, and  even  if  the  circumstances  had  not  miti- 
gated their  offence,  there  is  no  wonder  that,  reading 
the  report  of  these  trials  in  New  England's  Spirit  of 
Persecution  transmitted  to  Pennsilvania,  and  even  be- 
fore hearing  of  any  danger  to  the  life  of  Keith,  people 
outside  of  the  Province  felt,  that,  if  such  were  Quaker 
methods,  no  man  could  trust  his  liberty  or  property  to 
a  trial  by  Quakers.  Whether  the  law  had  been  stretched 
too  far  or  not,  the  fact  remained  that  both  liberty  and 
property  had  been  taken  away  judicially  by  the  oppos- 
ing party  in  a  religious  dispute.  Should  a  case  arise 
where  the  legal  penalty  clearly  involved  loss  of  life, 
would  not  the  Quakers  vindicate  their  authority  in  the 
same  way  as  the  Congregationalists  of  New  England? 
This  suspicion  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  assumption, 
described  in  the  next  chapter,  of  the  government  by  the 
Crown.    That  change  had  already  been  ordered.    What 


234  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

was  the  occasion  of  the  letter  of  Lloyd  and  others  to 
Keith  shortly  after  the  Court  adjourned,  is  not  known. 

The  indictment  or  a  fresh  one  was  pending  against 
Keith  when  the  new  Governor  assumed  authority. 
Keith,  in  his  aforesaid  statement  about  being  accused 
of  a  capital  offence,  goes  on  to  say  that  this  representa- 
tive of  the  Crown  "ordei'ed  them  to  let  fall  the  indict- 
ment, and  I  was  cleared  by  a  public  writ  signed  by  the 
Deputy  Governor  Col.  Markham  and  the  Council." 
The  only  record  found  bearing  on  this  is  the  minute 
of  Fletcher 's  Council  for  June  20,  1693,  Markham  pre- 
siding, that  George  Keith  (printed  "Seith"  in  Colo- 
nial Records,  Vol.  I.)  exhibited  a  letter  to  Keith  dated 
10th  month  26,  1692,  from  Thomas  Lloyd,  Samll.  Jen- 
nings, Arthur  Cooke,  and  Jno.  Delaval,  charging  him 
with  being  crazy,  turbulent,  a  decrier  of  magistracy, 
and  a  notorious  evil  instrument  in  Church  and  State; 
whereupon  Fletcher's  Council  issued  a  certificate  of 
Keith's  good  behavior.  The  fines  against  Keith  and 
Budd,  which  the  Quaker  government  had  not  attempted 
to  collect,  were  remitted,  as  well  as  Boss's,  by  Fletcher, 
who  released  Boss  from  prison,  and  caused  Bradford's 
tools  and  type  to  be  returned  to  him. 

It  was  the  Keithian  Monthly  Meeting  which,  at  Phila- 
delphia, on  8mo.  13,  1693,  gave  forth  "an  exhortation 
and  caution  to  Friends  concerning  buying  or  keeping 
of  negroes."  This,  excejit  what  was  expressed  at  a 
gathering  in  German  town  in  1688,  was  the  first  anti- 
slavery  declaration  of  the  Quakers. 

Keith  and  Budd  went  to  England  about  the  end  of 
1693.  Jennings  and  Thomas  Duckett  went  about  the 
same  time,  to  circumvent  them.  Keith  and  Budd  at- 
tended the  next  Yearly  Meeting  in  London,  where 
Jennings  and  Thomas  Duckett  appeared  against  them 
from  America,  and  were  supported  by  the  visiting 
Friends,  Thomas  Wilson  and  James  Dickenson.  The 
Meeting  declared  that  Keith  had  done  ill  in  printing 


Religious  Dissension.  235 

and  publishing  the  differences,  and  asked  him  to  call 
in  his  books,  or  publish  something  to  clear  the  body  of 
Quakers.  Thomas  Ellwood  submitted  on  the  2nd  day 
an  epistle  warning  against  him,  and  obtained  leave  to 
print  it.  Keith  being  no  more  inclined  to  submission 
than  most  reformers,  the  next  Yearly  Meeting,  on  May 
25,  1695,  after  hearing  him  through,  disowned  him,  ex- 
plaining that  this  was  not  for  doctrine,  but  for  his 
unbearable  temper  and  carriage  and  refusal  to  with- 
draw his  charges  against  the  Philadelphia  Quakers. 

Keith  then  hired  the  Turners'  Hall,  Philpot  Lane, 
London,  and  there,  in  Quaker  garb,  he  preached  and 
administered  baptism  and  communion.  Koster  the 
Pietist  (see  chapter  on  the  Germans),  or  more  likely  his 
biographer  Rathlef,  misunderstanding  him,  strangely 
accounts  for  the  Keithians  of  Pennsylvania  delaying  to 
practise  these  ordinances  from  Keith's  Anglican  mis- 
givings about  a  layman  doing  so,  misgivings  which 
Koster  as  a  Lutheran  did  not  have.  The  Keithians 
of  Pennsylvania,  we  are  told,  being  twitted  with  not 
practising  what  they  showed  their  belief  in,  several  of 
them  who  had  not  been  baptized  in  infancy  induced 
Koster  to  immerse  them  in  the  Delaware  River.  It  was 
a  few  years  after  this,  and  when  various  Pennsylvania 
Keithians  had  gone  different  ways,  that  Keith  entered 
the  ministry  of  the  Established  Church.  He  gave  his 
reasons  for  so  doing  in  a  farewell  sermon  at  the  Hall 
on  May  5,  1700,  and  was  made  deacon  by  the  Bishop 
of  London  seven  days  later.  Keith's  further  career 
will  be  mentioned  in  connection  with  the  Church  of 
England. 

Although  it  has  been  stated  that  some  of  the  Keith- 
ians reunited  with  the  regular  organization  of  the 
Society  of  Friends,  no  instance  has  been  found  of  any 
prominent  one  doing  so.  Robert  Turner  and  others  of 
those  who  were  inhabitants  of  the  City  are  recorded 
in  the  list  kept  by  William  Hudson  of  persons  deceased 


236  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

"not  Friends."  Nor  did  a  movement  back  to  the  So- 
ciety break  up  the  Keithian  meetings  at  Southampton, 
Lower  Dublin,  or  Providence.  Equally  untrue  is  the 
idea  that  Christ  Church,  Philadelphia,  the  Mother  of 
the  Episcopal  Churches  of  the  City  and  the  Province, 
was  started  by  or  absorbed  most  of  the  Keithians.  The 
greatest  trend  was  towards  the  Baptists,  but  a  number, 
after  being  immersed,  were  keepers  of  Saturday  as  the 
day  of  rest  and  worship,  and  joined  the  Seventh  Day 
Baptists. 

According  to  Rev.  Morgan  Edwards's  Materials 
towards  a  History  of  the  Baptists  in  Pennsylvania, 
William  Davis  and  Thomas  Rutter  in  1697  were  im- 
mersed by  Rev.  Thomas  Killingworth,  a  First  Day, 
or  regular,  Baptist  minister  from  Norfolk,  England, 
who  had  a  small  congregation  at  Cohansey,  New  Jersey. 
Davis  joined  the  Pennypack  Baptist  Church,  but  was 
expelled  on  Feb.  17,  1698,  for  heresy  as  to  the  Divine 
and  human  natures  in  Christ.  John  Hart  seems  to 
have  led  the  non-seceding  members  of  his  First  Day 
Meeting  to  the  house  of  John  Swift  in  Southampton 
Township,  where  they  joined  other  Keithians.  To 
these  Hart  preached.  He  was  immersed  by  Rutter  in 
1697.  For  a  while  at  least,  Hart  and  his  followers 
were  among  those  convinced  of  the  obligation  to  keep 
Saturday  as  the  Sabbath,  but  he,  in  1702,  and  most  of 
the  other  Keithians  of  Southampton  sooner  or  later 
joined  Pennypack  Baptist  Church.  Evan  Morgan  was 
also  immersed  by  Rutter  in  or  about  1697,  and  became 
a  minister  in  1706. 

Perhaps  it  should  be  here  noted  that  the  Pennypack 
Church  bid  fair  to  become  flourishing,  a  not  inconsider- 
able number  of  Baptists  from  Pembrokeshire  and  Car- 
marthenshire, who  had  organized  in  1701  at  Milford, 
came  over  that  year  to  Philadelphia  with  their  minister, 
Rev.  Thomas  Griffiths,  and  went  to  the  Pennypack. 
However,  they  insisted  upon  the  ceremony  of  laying  on 


Eeligious  Dissension.  237 

of  hands,  and  so  could  not  be  in  fellowship  with  the 
others,  and,  in  1703,  bought  30,000  acres,  since  known 
as  the  Welsh  Tract,  in  New  Castle  Co.,  and  removed 
thither.  From  the  AVelsh  Tract  Church,  missions  and 
perhaps  emigrants  founded  several  congregations, 
among  them  that  of  the  Great  Valley  (in  Tredyffrin 
Township,  Chester  Co.),  instituted  in  1711  with  Rev. 
Hugh  Davis,  an  ordained  minister  from  Wales.  The 
Pennypack  Church  died  out,  and  the  views  and  prac- 
tices of  the  Welsh  Tract  people  spread  through  the 
Baptist  denomination  of  Penn's  colony. 

Either  before  or  after  aligning  themselves  with 
Keith,  certain  Friends  about  Frankford  and  in  Lower 
Dublin  built  a  meeting-house  on  land  belonging  to 
Thomas  Graves.  Among  them  was  John  Wells,  a 
signer  of  the  answer  to  the  judgment  of  Lloyd  and 
others.  Wells  on  Sep.  27,  1697,  became  a  Baptist. 
Davis,  upon  his  expulsion  from  the  Pennypack  Baptist 
Church,  joined  the  Keithians  of  Lower  Dublin,  who 
before  long  began  to  separate  rapidly.  In  1699,  David 
Price  and  wife,  Abraham  Pratt  and  wife,  Richard 
Wells,  Richard  Sparks,  and  others  were  baptized,  and 
formed  a  congregation  with  Davis  as  minister.  Davis 
adopted  Sabbatarian  views,  in  which  he  was  joined  by 
a  number,  including  Pratt,  at  whose  house  meetings 
were  at  some  time  held,  and  it  appears  that  others 
seceded.  In  1703  and  1704,  there  was  a  dispute,  men- 
tioned in  the  records  of  the  Sabbatarians  of  Westerly, 
Rhode  Island,  before  whom  appeared  Davis  and  Pratt— 

Sachse  quotes  the  record  "Abraham ."     Davis 

went  in  1710  to  take  charge  of  the  Sabbatarians  at 
Westerly.  Richard  Sparks,  above  mentioned,  died  in 
1716,  having  left  a  lot  in  Philadelphia  on  the  east  side 
of  5th  below  Market  as  a  burial-place  for  himself  and 
other  Seventh  Day  Baptists.  It  is  now  included  in  the 
pavement  in  front  of  the  Bourse,  the  remains  that  could 
be  found  having  been  removed  to  the  Cemetery  of 


238  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Seventh  Day  Baptists  at  Shiloh,  Cumberland  Co.,  N.  J. 

It  is  claimed,  however,  that  most  of  the  "Christian 
Quakers"  of  Frankford  and  Lower  Dublin,  including 
Graves,  as  the  fruit  of  Anglican  preaching,  and  inde- 
pendently of  Keith,  went  over  to  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land in  1699  or  1700.  Graves  conveyed  the  meeting- 
house and  lot  of  three  acres  by  deed  dated  Dec.  30, 
1700,  to  Joshua  Carpenter  and  John  Moore  "for  the 
use  and  service  of  those  in  communion  with  our  holy 
mother  the  Church  of  England  and  to  no  other  use  or  uses 
whatsoever. ' '  The  congregation  since  known  as  Trinity 
Church,  Oxford,  worshipped  for  a  time  in  the  meeting- 
house, and  before  Nov.  5, 1713,  erected  on  the  lot  its  pres- 
ent church  edifice,  the  meeting-house  becoming  a  stable, 
and  afterwards  being  taken  down.  Before  our  civil 
courts  undertook  to  enforce  theological  trusts,  there 
were  several  instances,  where,  as  a  result  of  change  in 
religious  opinion  or  the  impracticability  of  keeping  to 
the  old  design,  the  majority  of  a  congregation  or  trie 
holders  of  title  to  church  property  took  it  into  another 
ecclesiastical  connection.  These  instances  seem  to  us, 
where  they  were  not  the  nearest  possible  carrying  out 
of  the  trust,  fraudulent  conversions  to  new  uses:  but 
the  persons  who  gave  the  ground,  or  built  the  edifice, 
may  have  said  to  themselves  that  their  primary  in- 
tention was  to  provide  a  place  for  themselves  to  wor- 
ship in,  and  that  they  were  not  to  lose  the  use  of  it, 
because  of  some  obstinate  associate,  or  of  somebody 
with  whom  they  once  agreed  in  opinion. 

There  is  a  tradition  mentioned  by  Sachse,  but  not  by 
Edwards,  that  Abel  Noble,  visiting  Jersey,  had  been 
baptized  by  Killingworth.  Perhaps  it  was  in  Rhode 
Island  by  Stephen  Mumford  of  Newport.  Noble  had 
devoted  himself  very  much  to  the  Keithians  of  Upper 
Providence.  When  these  became  impressed  with  the 
obligation  of  baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper,  and  were 
left  to  their  liberty  by  those  in  association  with  them 


Religious  Dissension.  239 

in  Philadelphia,  Thomas  Martin  was  selected  to  baptize 
them,  but  first  to  be  baptized  himself  by  Abel  Noble, 
who  had  been  already  baptized.  Edwards  gives  the 
date  of  Noble's  baptizing  Martin  as  June  28,  1697. 
Afterwards,  the  members  nominated  Thomas  Budd, 
Thomas  Martin,  and  William  Beckingham,  and,  lots 
being  drawn,  the  choice  fell  on  Martin  to  administer 
the  Lord's  Supper.  Edwards  says  that  Martin  did  so 
on  Oct.  12.  An  offer  was  made  to  receive  such  friends 
in  Philadelphia  as  thought  their  baptism  when  infants 
sufficient,  provided  there  was  nothing  else  against  them, 
but  these  refused,  and  the  others  soon  felt  relieved,  the 
record  saying:  "we  account  it  a  providence,  and  ac- 
knowledge our  shortness  in  giving  away  the  Lord's 
cause."  This  Upper  Providence  congregation  split 
on  the  question  of  the  Sabbath,  and  dissolved.  How- 
ever, those  who  favored  keeping  Sunday  were  gathered 
together  about  1715  by  Rev.  Abel  Morgan,  and,  in  1718, 
built  a  meeting-house  in  Birmingham  Township.  In 
1742,  a  second  place  of  worship  for  part  of  the  same 
congregation  was  built  in  Newlin  Township,  bearing 
the  name  of  Brandywine  Baptist  Church.  The  Sabba- 
tarians, on  the  other  hand,  united  at  Newtown.  In 
1717,  a  number  took  up  considerable  land  between  the 
Brandywine  and  French  Creek,  and,  reinforced  by 
some  seceders  from  the  Great  Valley  Baptist  Church, 
this  congregation,  called  Nantmeal,  became  a  strong 
one. 

The  Keithians  in  the  City  of  Philadelphia  had  a 
wooden  meeting-house  on  the  west  side  of  Second  below 
Mulberry  (Arch)  street.  The  lot  had  been  conveyed 
to  Thomas  Budd,  Thomas  Peart,  Ralph  Ward,  and 
James  Poulter  in  trust  for  the  use  of  the  Christian 
people  called  Quakers  subscribing  the  articles  of  faith, 
for  a  meeting-house  or  place  of  worship,  and  such  other 
uses  as  the  major  part  of  the  Meeting  should  appoint, 
and  to  convey  to  such  persons  as  the  major  part  of  the 


240  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Meeting  should  appoint.  The  meeting-house  was  lent 
to  the  Church  of  England  congregation,  while  its  build- 
ing was  in  course  of  erection. 

Thomas  Budd  died,  his  burial  being  on  12mo.  15, 
1697-8.  His  antecedents  or  inclination,  at  least  the 
ecclesiastical  destination  of  his  family,  was  Presby- 
terian. 

Eutter  baptized  nine  persons,  among  whom  was 
Thomas  Peart,  and  these  nine,  with  Eutter  as  Minister, 
united  for  meetings  on  June  12,  1698,  and  they  con- 
tinued apparently  to  be  included  under  the  name  of 
Keithians,  and  doubtless,  through  Peart  being  a  trustee, 
occupied  the  meeting-house,  or  perhaps  shared  it,  even 
at  first,  with  those  who  attended  a  different  preacher. 
The  chapter  on  the  Church  of  England  will  mention  the 
removal  thither  of  the  regular  Baptists.  Eutter  re- 
sided a  while  in  Germantown,  and  then  at  Manatawny, 
where  he  began  making  iron  in  1716  or  1717,  being  the 
first  to  start  an  iron  works  within  the  limits  of  Penn- 
sylvania. 

We  learn,  from  the  statement  prepared  in  1730  in 
favor  of  Christ  Church's  claim  to  the  Keithian  meeting- 
house property  (Penna.  Archives  1st  Series,  Vol.  I), 
that  those  who  paid  nearly  two  thirds  of  the  original 
purchase  money,  including  Thomas  Peart  and  Ealph 
Ward,  joined  Christ  Church  congregation,  but,  as  be- 
fore said,  they  were  not  among  its  earliest  members. 
Logan  speaks  in  1702  of  some  Keithians,  including 
McComb,  greatly  opposing  Keith  at  that  time:  but 
either  before  or  later,  as  their  Society  died  out,  Nicholas 
Pearce  and  Thomas  Tresse  were  among  those  who 
became  Churchmen.  The  tombstone  of  the  former  is  in 
the  floor  of  the  present  edifice  of  Christ  Church.  The 
statement  tells  that  in  1723  Thomas  Peart,  as  surviving 
trustee,  conveyed  the  meeting-house  property  to  certain 
Churchmen  in  trust  for  a  school  for  all  Christians  with- 
out any  violence  to  their  consciences.    About  this  time, 


Religious  Dissension.  241 

Joan  Lee,  who,  with  her  husband,  William  Lee,  had 
joined  Christ  Church,  forsook  it  for  the  Baptists :  She 
and  two  other  Baptist  women,  former  members  of  the 
Keithian  Meeting,  and  John  Budd,  heir  of  Thomas 
Budd,  and  William  Betridge  and  his  wife  Frances, 
heiress  of  James  Poulter,  as  representatives  of  de- 
ceased members,  made  a  deed  to  the  Baptists  in  1725. 
After  some  years  dispute,  Christ  Church  surrendered 
to  the  Baptists  all  claim  in  consideration  of  50£. 

For  some  time,  the  name  "Lloydians,"  after  Thomas 
Lloyd,  was  given  to  those  Quakers  who  had  adhered 
to  him.  The  word  is  misprinted  as  "Hoytians"  in  the 
letter  of  Rev.  Thomas  Clayton  published  in  Perry's 
Collections,  as  will  be  shown  in  the  chapter  on  the 
Church  of  England. 

In  the  remnant  of  the  Society  of  Friends  on  the 
Delaware  remaining  after  the  Keithian  secession  and 
the  subsequent  propaganda  of  various  denominations, 
Orthodoxy  triumphed;  perhaps  because  of  the  death 
of  certain  radical  opposers  of  Keith,  perhaps  because 
of  the  influence  of  the  positive  teaching  of  the  religious 
bodies  surrounding — but  there  is  here  no  intention  to 
deny  that  it  was  the  work  of  the  Spirit.  There  was 
early  a  readiness  in  prominent  adherents  to  profess 
their  faith  in  the  Trinity,  and  to  acknowledge  the 
Scriptures  to  be  divinely  inspired.  Within  four  years 
after  the  Philadelphia  Quarterly  Meeting's  condemna- 
tion of  Keith,  five  signers  of  the  declaration  against 
him,  viz:  Wain,  Maris,  Simcock,  Blunston,  and  Biles, 
and  prominent  men  like  David  Lloyd,  Richardson, 
Shippen,  Morris,  and  Carpenter,  and  also  Caleb  Pusey, 
who  then  or  afterwards  wrote  against  Keith,  had  sub- 
scribed the  declaration  and  acknowledgment  set  forth 
in  the  English  Act  of  Toleration.  The  Frame  of  Gov- 
ernment of  1696  was  not  designed  to  exclude  the  leading 
Friends  from  office,  nor  was  it  objected  to  as  having 
such  effect ;  yet  it  prescribed  the  making  and  signing  of 

16 


242  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

such  profession  and  acknowledgment  as  the  alternative 
for  taking  a  certain  oath  for  qualifying  to  serve  as 
Councillor,  Assemblyman,  or  any  officer,  and  the  As- 
sembly chosen  in  1705,  composed  almost  entirely  of 
Quakers,  passed  bills,  which  became  the  permanent  law 
of  the  Province,  not  merely  requiring  that  profession 
and  acknowledgment  for  eligibility  to  office,  but  also 
insuring  liberty  of  conscience  only  for  those  whose 
belief  was  represented  in  the  Parliamentary  phrase- 
ology. It  is  not  likely  that  there  were  at  the  time  any 
number  of  Pennsylvania  Quakers  left  unprotected  by 
such  curtailment  of  toleration.  Going,  however,  beyond 
this  outline  of  faith,  the  following,  under  date  of  3mo. 
20, 1696,  signed,  in  a  petition  to  King  William  III,  their 
recognition  of  Jesus  conceived  miraculously  by  the 
Holy  Ghost,  born  of  a  Virgin,  giving  his  life  on  the 
cross  a  sacrifice  for  man's  sins,  rising  again,  ascending 
into  glory,  and  living  to  make  intercession  for  men,  as 
the  Son  of  God  and  Saviour  of  the  World,  viz : 
David  Lloyd  Samuel  Preston 

William  Harwood  Jno.  Symcocke 

Thomas  Makin  Hugh  Roberts 

Nathan  Stanbury  Samuel  Carpenter 

Edward  Shippen  Alexander  Beardsley 

Samuel  Richardson  John  Linam 

Isaac  Norris  Caleb  Pusey 

Abra.  Hardiman  Robert  Ewer 

James  Fox  Walter  Faucett 

Antho.  Morris  George  Gray. 

Following  this  lead,  it  came  to  pass  and  continued 
throughout  the  rest  of  Colonial  times  and  into  the  Nine- 
teenth Century  that  American  Quakerdom  in  the 
greater  notes,  if  with  some  minor  elisions,  joined  in 
chorus  with  Rome,  Geneva,  Augsburg,  Constantinople, 
and  Canterbury. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

England. 

Position  of  England  among  European  powers  in 
1688 — War — Opposition  to  William  and  Mary  in 
the  British  Isles — James  IPs  invasion  of  Ireland — 
Attitude  of  Penn — Directions  to  proclaim  William 
and  Mary  in  Pennsylvania  and  Maryland — Pro- 
ceedings against  Penn — The  Preston  Conspiracy 
— Penn's  frustrated  plan  to  sail — Forbearance  of 
William  III,  and  insufficiency  of  evidence  of  overt 
acts  by  Penn  for  James — Foolishness  of  Charles 
IPs  grant  of  Pennsylvania — The  Province  and 
Territories  placed  under  the  Governor  of  New 
York — Fletcher's  commission,  arrival,  and  early 
proceedings — His  debate  with  the  Quakers  as  to 
money  for  the  war — Promise  it  should  "not  be  dipt 
in  blood" — Confirmation  of  laws  named  in  a  Peti- 
tion of  Right — Vote  of  money  "towards  the  support 
of  this  government"  "as  a  testimony  of  our  dutiful 
affections"  to  the  King  and  Queen — Post  Office — 
Fletcher  advises  union  of  Pennsylvania  with  New 
York,  the  Jerseys,  and  Connecticut  under  one 
Assembly — The  Philadelphia  market  place — The 
Pennsylvania  Assembly  of  1694 — Penn's  friends 
among  English  public  men — Royal  permission  to 
go  and  come — Restoration  of  the  government — 
Markham  appointed  Governor  with  Goodson  and 
Carpenter  as  Assistants — The  customs — England's 
regulation  of  Trade. 

The  throne,  calling  the  headship  over  England  and 
Scotland  one  throne,  which  William  and  Mary  as- 
cended, had  not  then  the  exalted  position  in  the  World 
which  the  throne  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  had  at 


244  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

the  accession  of  George  V,  when  the  millions  upon  mil- 
lions of  Hindus  were  recognizing  it  as  an  imperial  seat, 
when  the  continent  of  Australia,  half  of  North  America, 
and  the  lower  end  of  Africa  were  bowing  before  it, when 
Gibraltar  and  Malta  and  Weihaiwei  were  garrisoned 
by  its  soldiers,  when  Egypt  was  administered  by  its 
agents,  when  the  politics  of  Europe  awaited  the  casting 
voice  uttered  in  its  name.  When  the  fourth  Stuart  King 
of  England  was  superseded,  and  his  infant  son  passed 
over,  the  Hapsburger  at  Vienna  was  still  called  the 
successor  of  Augustus  and  Charlemagne,  the  Haps>- 
burger  at  Madrid  was  still  the  greatest  beneficiary  of 
Columbus.  Besides  the  suzerainty  over  Germany, 
powerful  and  unrestrained  and  rebellious  as  some  of 
its  greater  princes  were,  and  besides  the  direct  control 
over  Austria  as  Archduke,  and  over  Bohemia  as  King, 
Leopold  I  held  the  kingdom  of  Hungary:  Carlos  II, 
who  was  also  King  of  the  Two  Sicilies,  and  lord  of 
what  is  now  Belgium,  ruled,  as  King  of  Castille, 
Aragon,  &ct.,  over  California,  Texas,  Mexico,  Central 
America,  Cuba,  and  practically  all  of  South  America 
except  Brazil.  The  Sultan  of  Turkey  had  the  most 
extensive  dominion  in  the  Old  World.  France,  control- 
ling Canada  and  much  of  what  was  recently  called  by 
people  in  the  United  States  ' '  the  Great  West, ' '  was  the 
greatest  nation  of  Christendom.  Portugal  was  a 
world-power,  owning  Brazil,  and  being  one  of  the  Euro- 
pean nations  having  considerable  foothold  in  Asia  and 
Africa.  Poland  and  Lithuania,  united  under  an  elected 
king,  played  an  important  part  in  European  politics, 
and  had  just  stemmed  the  tide  of  Ottoman  advance  in 
coming  to  the  relief  of  Vienna.  Sweden,  while  possess- 
ing no  colonies,  bid  fair  by  conquest  to  hold  a  great 
realm  southeast  of  the  Baltic.  Whatever  promise  of 
being  the  equal  or  superior  of  any  of  these  powers 
England  had  given  under  the  Tudors,  or  when  it  came 
under   one   king  with   Scotland,   however   widely   the 


England.  245 

British  people  had  been  extended  by  colonies  planted 
under  James  I,  Charles  I,  and  Cromwell,  or  by  the  ac- 
quisition of  New  York  and  Tangiers  and  Bombay, 
England  sank  into  a  contemptible  position  in  the  latter 
years  of  Charles  II,  and  exerted  little  influence  on  the 
main  Continent  of  Europe.  The  short  reign  of  his 
successor  was  taken  up  with  a  domestic  struggle. 

In  one  of  the  intervals  when  Charles  II  had  not  been 
under  French  control,  he  had  bound  himself,  in  one 
of  the  treaties  made  at  Nimeguen  in  1678,  to  aid  the 
United  Netherlands,  if,  after  the  peace  then  about  to 
be  made,  they  should  be  attacked  by  France.  So  that 
England  was  already  burdened  with  the  support  of  the 
independence  of  that  small  confederacy,  and  was  more 
securely  fastening  that  burden  upon  herself  when  she 
accepted  the  Stadholder,  William,  as  her  king.  There 
was  very  little  net  gain  in  the  contribution  which  he 
brought,  viz :  the  co-operation,  if  not  merely  friendship, 
of  the  United  Netherlands,  rich  in  colonies,  but  not  as 
powerful  as  before  the  loss  of  supremacy  at  sea.  and 
the  loss  of  possessions  in  North  America.  There  was 
an  alliance,  which  had  been  entered  into  in  1685,  be- 
tween the  Estates  General,  the  supreme  authority,  and 
the  Elector  of  Brandenburg  and  the  King  of  Sweden; 
and  the  latter,  still  possessor  of  Pomerania  and 
Bremen,  had  united  with  the  Emperor  and  various 
rulers  of  the  German  states  in  the  League  of  Augsburg, 
signed  June  21,  1686,  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining 
certain  treaties,  which  Louis  XIV  seemed  preparing  to 
violate.  Louis  conquered  the  Palatinate  in  1687,  and 
it  was  apparently  to  support  Germany  that  William 
gathered  the  army  with  which,  the  next  year,  he  in- 
vaded England.  Before  William  reached  London, 
Louis  declared  war  against  the  Netherlands,  and  so 
England,  under  the  treaty  of  Nimeguen,  became  liable 
to  furnish  aid  to  them. 

Thus,  as  soon  as  England  and  the  Netherlands  had 


246  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

been  brought  together  under  a  master  mind, — for,  at 
the  transfer  of  the  English  Crown,  William  was  desig- 
nated as  the  actual  ruler, — they  were  embroiled  in  a 
Continental  war.  A  league  was  concluded  at  Vienna 
on  May  12,  1689,  between  the  Estates  General  and  the 
Emperor,  binding  them  to  prosecute  the  war  until 
France  had  been  driven  back  to  the  boundaries  fixed  by 
treaty  in  1659. 

Very  powerful  would  have  been  the  whole  combina- 
tion, or  even  England  and  the  Netherlands  without 
others,  if  the  population  of  the  British  Isles  had  been 
unanimous,  as  William  and  Mary's  bloodless  triumph 
in  England  seemed  to  indicate.  But  a  great  number  of 
Englishmen,  including  many  of  the  higher  clergy  of 
the  National  Church,  still  believed  James  to  be  their 
lawful  king,  while  with  others  there  was  before  long 
some  reaction  against  William  and  Mary,  and  a 
jealousy  of  the  Dutch.  Scotland,  the  ancient  kingdom 
of  the  Stuarts,  had  been  brought,  largely  by  its  Presby- 
terian party,  to  accept  the  new  sovereigns;  but  there 
were  great  lords  and  fierce  clansmen  attached  by  inter- 
est, nationalistic  sympathy,  or  a  common  religion  to 
James  (the  seventh  James  Stuart  who  had  been  king 
of  that  country) :  while  throughout  Ireland  the  Boman 
Catholics,  greatly  in  the  majority,  rose  against  the 
Protestants,  drove  them  to  seek  shelter  in  certain 
towns,  and  asked  James  to  leave  his  place  of  retirement, 
St.  Germain-en-Laye  near  Paris,  and  to  come  and  reign 
at  Dublin.  Provided  by  Louis  XIV  with  a  French 
fleet,  with  arms,  ammunition,  and  money  and  some 
French  officers,  commanded  by  Lieut.-Gen.  Conrad  de 
Rosen,  Comte  de  Bolweiller,  and  with  De  Mesmes, 
Comte  d'Avaux,  as  French  Ambassador,  James  landed 
at  Kinsale  on  March  12,  1688-9,  and  entered  Dublin 
on  March  16  (0.  S.). 

There  is  no  reasonable  doubt  that  William  Penn, 
while  unresisting  to  the  powers  in  possession,  and  not 


England.  247 

following  James  to  France,  or  joining  him  in  Ireland, 
wished  him  restored  to  the  throne:  a  different  senti- 
ment in  Penn  would  have  involved  not  only  the  dis- 
regarding of  his  interests,  but  also  an  ungrateful  hard- 
ening of  his  heart:  nor  was  it  likely  that  he  saw,  far 
beyond  the  contemporary  scattering  of  his  friends  and 
glorification  of  a  liturgical  and  title-taking  Church  and 
participation  in  a  foreign  war,  that  withal,  under  in- 
truding sovereigns,  England  would  be  ultimately  better 
off.  What  he  did  towards  the  fruition  of  his  wishes, 
or  in  line  with  his  feelings,  is  a  subject  of  dispute. 
When  examined  as  to  the  letter  about  to  be  mentioned, 
he  said  that  he  had  never  had  any  correspondence  with 
— i.e.  had  never  written  to — King  James  since  the 
latter  left  England.  This  plea  does  not  cover  any  later 
date  than  July  or  August,  1689. 

Certainly  James  had  a  high  opinion  of  the  abilities 
of  his  Quaker  favorite,  and  would  have  liked  to  use  him 
in  the  project  of  a  restoration.  By  some  authorities  it 
is  said  that  the  letter  from  James  to  Penn  with  which 
Penn  was  confronted,  which  is  spoken  of  as  having 
been  intercepted,  but  which  may  have  been  received 
and  lost  or  stolen,  was  written  before  James  left 
France  for  Ireland.  It  asked  Penn  to  come  to  James's 
assistance,  and  to  express  the  resentments  of  (the  ser- 
vices possible  in  return  for)  his  favor  and  benevolence. 
It  certainly  did  not  contradict  Penn's  denial  by  con- 
taining an  acknowledgement  of  the  receipt  of  any  letter 
from  Penn,  or  confer  any  authority  upon  him,  from 
which  those  finding  the  letter  could  prove  his  previous 
undertaking  to  perform  any  acts.  Yet  there  is  evidence 
for  an  historian,  even  if  it  does  not  amount  to  proof, 
that,  subsequent  to  the  writing  of  the  letter,  and  before 
Penn's  examination  concerning  it,  two  things  happened 
which  were  inconsistent  with  Penn's  neutrality.  About 
two  months  after  James's  arrival  in  Dublin,  Comte 
d'Avaux,  saw  a  letter  from  "M.  Pen,"  possibly  with- 


248  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

out  signature,  but  of  which  the  writer  must  then  have 
been  mentioned  truthfully  but  perhaps  indistinctly  to 
Avaux.  The  letter  gave  news  which  Avaux  copied  or 
translated  for  "le  commencement"  of  "Memoire  des 
Nouvelles  d'Angleterre  et  d'  Escosse,"  which  he  sent 
to  Louis  XIV,  with  a  letter  dated  June  5,  1689,  printed 
in  full  with  the  "Memoire"  in  W.  Hepworth  Dixon's 
History  of  William  Penn  Founder  of  Pennsylvania. 
The  beginning  of  the  "Memoire"  is:  "Le  prince 
d 'Orange  commence  d'estre  fort  degoutte  de  l'humeur 
des  Anglois,  et  la  face  des  choses  change  bien  viste 
selon  la  nature  des  insulaires,  et  sa  sante  est  fort 
mauvaise. ' '  The  ' '  Memoire ' '  goes  on  to  speak  of  ' '  Un 
nuage  qui  commence  a  se  forme  au  nord  des  deux 
royaumes,"  where  "le  Roy"  had  many  friends,  and  of 
the  anxiety  of  William's  partisans,  who  apprehended 
an  invasion  from  France  and  Ireland,  in  which  case 
the  dethroned  King  would  have  more  friends  than  ever, 
also  of  the  jealousy  which  the  English  had  of  the 
Dutch,  and  of  the  belief  that  if  James  would  arrive 
with  an  army,  even  Parliament  would  declare  for  him. 
Macaulay,  when  he  wrote  his  much  attacked  History 
of  England,  believed  that  "M.  Pen"  was  the  author 
of  most  of  this  encouragement  of  civil  war,  and  was 
identical  with  the  eminent  disciple  of  peace,  our 
Founder:  but,  if  more  than  the  opening  sentence  of 
the  "Memoire"  came  from  "M.  Pen,"  and  if  our 
Founder's  sweeping  denial  of  having  communicated 
with  James  is  not  deemed  conclusive,  there  is  the  great 
improbability  that  a  shrewd  man,  already  put  under 
heavy  bail,  took  such  a  risk,  probably  before  his  dis- 
charge from  bail  in  Easter  Term,  as  writing  to  the 
exiled  monarch  at  all,  and  particularly  any  seductive 
matter.  Dixon  has  made  the  excellent  suggestion  that 
"M.  Pen"  was  Neville  Payne,  the  well  known  plotter. 
His  activity  a  few  months  later,  if  not  that  early,  is 
stated  in  the  Account  by  the  Earl  of  Balcarres,  or  his 


England.  249 

letter  to  King  James,  known  as  Balcarres'  Memoir. 
Dixon's  identification  is  strengthened  by  Dr.  Brom- 
field's  connection  with  a  trial  of  Payne  some  years 
afterwards.  There  still  remains,  accounting  also  for 
the  other  fact  for  which  there  is  evidence,  the  hy- 
pothesis that  our  Founder,  with  what  may  be  called  his 
mania  for  putting  pen  to  paper,  wrote  the  aforesaid 
letter,  not  to  James  or  any  officer  acompanying  him, 
but  innocently  to  Dr.  Bromfield,  who  was  reputed  to 
be  a  Quaker.  John  Lunt,  whose  information,  given  in 
1694,  appears  in  Part  IV  of  Appendix  to  14th  Report 
of  the  Historical  MSS.  Commission,  swore  that  about 
the  end  of  May,  1689,  Dr.  Bromfield  came  over  to  Dub- 
lin from  England,  and  brought  an  account  of  condi- 
tions there  and  the  readiness  of  his  friends,  Papists  and 
Jacobites,  and  desired  from  King  James  commis- 
sions for  persons  of  quality  with  blanks  for  inferior 
officers,  which  accordingly  the  King  caused  to  be 
issued,  and  which  Lunt  carried  across  the  Irish  Sea, 
arriving  near  Lancaster  about  beginning  of  July,  1689 ; 
that  Lunt  gave  to  one  Jackson  two  bundles  of  commis- 
sions with  a  royal  declaration  and  two  other  papers 
sealed  up  with  each,  one  of  which  bundles  was  to  be 
delivered  to  "Sir  William  Penn  the  Quaker"  (in  other 
copies  of  the  information  it  is  "Mr.  William  Penn  the 
Quaker");  and  that  Lunt  supposed  that  Jackson  de- 
livered them,  for  he  took  coach  in  Lunt's  presence. 
Lunt  figures  in  Macaulay's  History  with  reference  to 
statements  as  to  others  as  a  betrayer  betrayed,  and  may 
be  discredited,  but  the  corroborative  force  of  Lunt's 
story  could  not  have  been  known  to  persons  concocting 
it,  for  the  people  of  England  in  1694  were  unaware  of 
Avaux  having  quoted  any  Pen,  and  there  was  no  object 
in  inventing  a  lie  against  William  Penn,  when  his 
friend  Trenchard  was  Secretary  of  State  and  the 
actual  examiner  of  Lunt.  No  notice  was  then  taken  of 
the  reference  to  Penn.    In  The  Jacobite  Trials  at  Man- 


250  Chkonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Chester  in  1694,  published  by  the  Chetham  Society  in 
1853,  the  date  of  Lunt's  landing  in  England  in  1689  is 
proved  to  have  been  June  13.  Under  date  of  June  22, 
1689,  a  warrant  was  issued  (see  Calendar  of  State 
Papers)  for  apprehending  William  Penn,  suspected  of 
high  treason.  It  is  possible  that  the  alleged  letter  en- 
trusted to  Jackson  for  Penn,  which  Lunt  supposed  to 
have  been  delivered,  fell  into  the  hands  of  William  Ill's 
officials  before  Penn's  appearance  under  this  warrant, 
and  that  such  letter  was  indeed  the  one  upon  which 
Penn  was  examined,  but,  if  so,  it  certainly  gave  him  no 
directions,  and  was  not  found  accompanied  by  blank 
commissions.  Narcissus  Luttrell  in  his  Diary,  printed 
as  A  Brief  Historical  Relation  of  State  Affairs,  says 
after  the  date  June  29,  1689,  "William  Penn  the 
famous  Quaker  and  one  Scarlet  another  busy  fellow 
pretendedly  a  Quaker  have  been  lately  taken  into  cus- 
tody for  some  practices  against  the  government." 
The  examination  of  Penn  upon  a  letter  from  the  exiled 
King  to  him  is  mentioned  in  General  History  of  Europe 
compiled  in  1692  from  Monthly  Mercuries.  Under  date 
of  August,  1689,  or  taken  from  the  Mercury  then  issued, 
is  the  statement  that  several  persons  had  been  released 
that  were  suspected  of  holding  correspondence  with 
King  James,  but  Mr.  Penn,  who  had  been  under  the 
same  suspicion,  was  still  under  restraint,  that  he  denied 
ever  having  any  correspondence  with  King  James  after 
he  left  England,  confessed  himself  greatly  beholden  to 
the  latter,  and  willing  to  be  serviceable  to  him  so  long  as 
it  was  not  to  the  prejudice  of  the  Protestant  religion  or 
present  government,  and  justified  that  King  James's 
writing  to  Penn  could  not  make  Penn  a  criminal,  be- 
cause it  was  not  in  his  power  to  hinder  it.  From  the 
Quaker  historians,  we  learn  that  he  was  asked  why  the 
dethroned  King  had  written  to  him,  and  that  he  made 
the  obvious  answer  that  is  was  impossible  for  him  to 
prevent  any  man  from  writing.    Questioned  as  to  what 


England.  251 

the  "resentments"  were,  Penn  said  that  he  did  not 
know,  but  that  he  supposed  that  James  meant  for  him 
to  make  endeavors  for  James's  restoration.  With 
boldness  and  nobleness  of  heart,  Penn  avowed  that  he 
had  loved  James  in  prosperity,  and  could  not  hate  him 
in  adversity,  had  loved  him  for  many  favors,  and  would 
repay  him  with  any  private  service,  but  would  observe 
the  duty  to  the  State  incumbent  upon  all  its  subjects, 
and  had  never  thought  of  endeavoring  to  restore  to 
James  the  Crown  which  had  fallen  from  his  head.  It 
is  further  said  that  King  William,  who  was  present  at 
the  examination,  was  inclined  to  let  Penn  go;  but,  at 
the  officials'  suggestion,  he  was  to  be  within  reach. 

On  Aug.  31,  1689,  Penn  and  Lord  Baltimore  were 
ordered  to  prepare  duplicates  of  the  orders  they  had 
sent,  or  were  assumed  to  have  sent,  to  their  provinces 
for  proclaiming  the  new  Sovereigns,  a  messenger  to  be 
appointed  by  the  King  to  go  and  return  at  their  ex- 
pense. 

On  9ber.  20,  actually  eighteen  days  after  Black- 
well  had  proclaimed  William  and  Mary  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, Edward  Blackfan  wrote  from  London  a  letter 
to  the  Secretary  of  the  Council  of  Pennsylvania  en- 
closing the  duplicates  of  the  orders  and  drafts  which 
Penn  was  to  send  for  such  proclamation.  The  packet 
was  carried  to  Philadelphia  by  Richard  Morris, 
master  of  the  ship  "Philadelphia  Merchant,"  and  ar- 
rived there  eight  months  later. 

The  collection  now  in  progress  of  Penn's  letters  and 
other  writings  may  be  expected  to  clear  up  at  least  the 
chronology  of  his  career  in  England.  Until  that  great 
work  be  finished,  we  can  not  use  all  the  information  ex- 
tant. He  appears  to  have  been  in  the  custody  of  a 
jailor  or  messenger  on  Oct.  24,  1689,  the  second  day 
of  the  term  of  King's  Bench,  when,  Luttrell  tells  us,  a 
habeas  corpus  was  obtained.  On  the  next  day,  Penn 
was  admitted  to  bail  in  a  recognizance  for  £1000  with 


252  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

four  sureties  in  £500  each.  Pursuant  to  this,  he  ap- 
peared on  Nov.  28,  the  last  day  of  the  term,  and  was 
discharged. 

Queen  Mary  in  1690,  administering  the  government 
in  King  William's  absence,  was  alarmed  by  the  defeat 
of  the  English  at  sea.  As,  it  is  claimed,  a  precaution 
against  enemies  at  home,  warrants  were  issued  against 
Penn  and  others  on  a  charge  of  high  treason,  perhaps 
without  fresh  evidence  in  Perm's  case.  They,  not  being 
found  at  the  usual  abodes,  were  deemed  to  have  fled 
from  justice.  On  July  14,  a  royal  proclamation  was 
issued  reciting  their  conspiring  to  destroy  the  govern- 
ment, and  their  adhering  to  the  enemy  in  the  present 
invasion.  Penn,  among  the  others,  was  commanded 
to  be  seized,  taken  to  the  nearest  Justice  of  the  Peace, 
and  by  him  committed  to  jail  until  delivered  by  law, 
the  Justice  of  the  Peace  to  notify  the  Privy  Council. 
Penn  wrote  to  the  Secretary  of  State  before  July  19, 
offering  to  surrender,  and  asking  to  be  admitted  to 
bail.  Penn  was  discharged  on  Aug.  15  on  recognizance 
to  appear  in  Court  at  the  next  term,  Michaelmas.  A 
news-letter  of  the  18th  speaks  of  his  being  on  bail. 
Luttrell  mentions  that  on  Oct.  23,  the  first  day  of  the 
term  of  Court,  Penn,  being  on  recognizance,  appeared 
before  the  King's  Bench,  when  his  case  was  continued 
to  the  end  of  the  term.  There  being  no  real  evidence 
at  hand  against  him,  he  was  discharged  on  coming  into 
Court  on  Nov.  28,  the  last  day. 

Some  time  in  or  after  April  of  that  year,  William 
Fuller,  who  had  been  a  short  time  in  France,  and  who 
was  one  of  the  chief  witnesses  against  Crone  for 
treason,  and  reaped  reward  thereby,  went  to  Ireland, 
and,  there  spending  the  Summer  and  perhaps  Autumn 
of  1690,  gave  testimony  along  with  one  Fisher  and  an 
Irishman,  whose  name  is  not  mentioned  in  Penn's 
biographies  or  published  letters,  on  the  strength  of 
which  testimony  Penn  was  indicted  there  for  high 


England.  253 

treason.  He  not  being  found  in  that  jurisdiction,  where 
he  had  not  been  within  twenty  years,  his  estate  was 
sequestered,  and  put  up  for  rent,  and  the  indictment 
and  its  incidents  hung  over  Penn,  it  appears,  until  he 
had  it  discharged  on  his  going  to  Ireland  in  1698. 
Fuller,  trying  to  live  by  the  trade  of  informer,  was 
unanimously  voted  an  imposter  and  false  accuser  by 
the  English  House  of  Commons  in  1691. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  Penn's  powers  of  obser- 
vation caused  him  to  be  consulted,  and  his  interest  in 
politics  caused  him  to  dabble  in  matters  from  which  he 
should  have  stood  aloof;  and  a  conspicuous  instance 
was  at  the  time  of  Preston's  Conspiracy,  so  called  after 
Sir  Richard  Graham,  President  of  the  Council  in 
James's  reign,  and  created  by  him  Viscount  Preston 
in  the  peerage  of  Scotland.  For  the  interesting  and 
pretty  well  attested  details  here  omitted  of  this  con- 
spiracy, the  reader  may  consult  Macaulay's  History. 
There  had  been,  according  to  a  report  found  among  the 
papers  carried  by  Preston  and  his  companions,  a  con- 
ference between  some  Tories  and  Whigs,  agreeing  that 
it  would  be  possible  to  restore  James  II,  if  neither  he 
nor  Louis  XIV  came  as  a  conqueror,  but  that  James 
must  accord  the  English  a  Protestant  administration, 
with  no  other  privilege  for  the  Catholics  than  liberty 
of  conscience,  and  must  show  a  model  of  this  at  St. 
Germain's  by  preferring  the  Protestants  about  him  to 
the  Catholics,  and  must  encourage  seven  or  nine  Pro- 
testant lords  and  gentlemen  then  in  England  to  come 
to  him,  as  a  standing  Council,  and  that  the  King  of 
France  must  allow  the  English  Protestants  in  that 
country  to  have  chapels — all  of  which  seems  such  a  so- 
lution of  the  state  of  affairs  that  we  could  not  blame 
Penn  if  he  had  proposed  it.  Furthermore,  a  declara- 
tion had  been  suggested  for  James  to  issue,  viz :  that 
the  army  brought  with  him  would  be  sent  back  as  soon 
as  the  Dutch  were  sent  away  from  England.    Various 


254  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

persons  had  written  letters,  which,  under  disguises, 
urged  James  to  make  a  speedy  invasion.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  traverse  Peim's  denial  of  being  at  any 
formal  conference,  or  of  knowing  what  was  on  foot: 
but  his  letter  without  date  to  Viscount  Sidney,  as  will 
be  seen,  means  that  Preston,  in  the  latter  part  of  De- 
cember, had  a  conversation  with  Penn,  and  Preston's 
report  in  his  confession  may  be  relied  upon  as  showing 
that  they  canvassed  the  "state  of  mind"  of  various 
prominent  personages,  and  that  Penn — let  us  suppose 
not  knowing  the  use  to  be  made  of  it — expressed  the 
opinion  that  the  Earl  of  Devonshire,  Lord  Steward  of 
the  Household  under  William  and  Mary,  and  Earl 
Dorset,  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  and  a  number  of  others 
would  be  glad  to  see  James  back  under  certain  condi- 
tions. It  is  not  clear,  but  it  is  possible,  that  Penn  even 
was  the  Mr.  P.  who  is  down  in  Preston's  memorandum 
as  giving  him  a  commission  for  Flanders:  the  next 
words  may  have  no  connection  with  this,  but  are 
"hinder  Eng.  and  D.  from  joining;"  then  comes  "two 
vessels  of  1501.  price  for  Pennsylvania  for  13  or  14 
months."  With  the  various  letters  and  some  infor- 
mation about  the  defence  of  the  coast,  Preston  and 
John  Ashton  with  a  more  innocent  companion,  Ed- 
mund Eliot,  left  London  on  December  31,  1690,  in  a 
fishing  smack,  hired  to  take  them  to  France,  osten- 
sibly for  smuggling.  They  were  overhauled  and  cap- 
tured, and  the  papers  seized.  Convicted  of  high 
treason,  Ashton  suffered  death,  but  Lord  Preston  saved 
his  life  by  a  confession.  Viscount  Sidney  wrote  on 
Jany.  20,  1690-1,  to  the  King  that  Preston  had  been 
tried  on  the  preceding  Saturday,  and  would  endeavor 
to  deserve  his  life  at  the  King's  hands,  so  that  Sidney 
favored  suspending  the  execution,  and  what  Preston 
could  say  against  Lord  Clarendon,  the  Bishop  of  Ely, 
and  Mr.  Penn  was  of  great  importance.  Sidney  added 
that  neither  the  Bishop  nor  Mr.  Penn  was  to  be  found, 


England.  255 

and  that  Perm  was  as  much  in  the  business  as  anybody, 
and  that  two  of  the  letters  were  certainly  of  his  writing. 
So  probably  on  this  account,  rather  than  by  reason  of 
anything  which  Fuller  had  said,  had  an  officer  been  sent 
to  arrest  Penn  at  George  Fox's  funeral,  which  took 
place  on  January  16, 1690-1,  at  Bunhill  Fields,  London. 
Making  a  mistake  as  to  the  hour,  it  is  explained,  the 
officer  was  unsuccessful.  Dixon,  from  mistaking  the 
date  of  the  subsequent  proclamation  for  that  of  the  war- 
rant, has  contradicted  Macaulay's  statement  of  this 
plan  to  arrest;  but  it  is  found  in  the  Quaker  biographies 
of  Penn,  who  himself  says  in  a  letter  of  4  mo.  14,  1691, 
to  Thomas  Lloyd,  printed  by  Janney :  "That  night, very 
providentially,  I  escaped  the  messenger's  hands." 
Although  the  Marquess  of  Carmarthen  said  on  Feb.  3 
that  Preston  was  the  only  witness  against  Penn,  a 
proclamation,  dated  Feb.  5,  1690-1,  was  issued  for  the 
capture  &ct.,  as  in  the  proclamation  of  July  14  preced- 
ing (both  proclamations  printed  by  American  Anti- 
quarian Society),  of  Francis,  late  Bishop  of  Ely, 
William  Penn  Esq.,  and  James  Grannie  Esq.,  as  hav- 
ing, for  procuring  an  invasion  by  the  French,  &ct.,  held 
correspondence  with  Preston.  Warrants  against  them 
for  high  treason  were  recited,  as  well  as  their  absence 
from  their  abodes,  and  fleeing  from  justice.  Penn  had 
been  making  preparations  to  sail  in  the  following 
April  to  Pennsylvania  with  a  large  number  of  settlers, 
and  the  Secretary  of  State  had  appointed  a  convoy  to 
protect  the  vessels,  but  this,  in  fact  everything  but  hid- 
ing, was  now  impossible. 

After  the  discovery  of  the  Preston  Conspiracy,  King 
William  sailed  from  Gravesend  for  Holland  on  Jany. 
18,  and  was  not  again  in  London  until  March.  About 
Feb.  19,  through  arrangement  made  by  Anthony  Low- 
ther,  Penn's  brother-in-law,  and,  with  consent  of  Queen 
Mary,  allowing  freedom  from  detention,  Penn  had  a 
secret  interview  with  Viscount  Sidney,  the  Secretary 


256  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

of  State.  Sidney's  letter  to  the  King  is  reprinted  by 
Dixon  from  Dalrymple's  Memoirs  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland.  Penn  protested  loyalty,  and  that  he  knew  of 
no  plot,  and  believed  in  none  but  what  Louis  XIV  had 
laid,  and  of  the  bottom  of  which  Penn  thought  that 
James  II  knew  as  little  as  other  people ;  also  Penn  said 
that  William  had  many  enemies,  and  some  who  came 
over  with  him,  or  soon  joined  him,  were  more  danger- 
ous than  the  Jacobites,  among  whom,  Penn  declared, 
there  was  no  man  who  had  even  ordinary  ability,  that, 
if  William  would  trust  Penn,  the  latter  would  tell  all 
he  knew  that  would  be  for  the  King's  interest  to  know, 
otherwise  he  would  very  unwillingly  leave  the  king- 
dom; but  that  he  could  not  appear  as  a  witness,  being 
unable  to  take  an  oath.  On  King  William's  return,  and 
Preston's  repetition  in  his  presence  of  the  confession, 
that  crowned  politician,  knowing  his  precarious  situa- 
tion on  the  throne,  was  disinclined  to  ferret  out  the  dis- 
affected, and  arouse  their  violent  hostility.  Two  letters 
of  this  time  from  Penn  to  Henry  Sidney,  then  Viscount 
Sidney,  are  printed  as  being  to  Lord  Romney,  the  title 
of  Earl  of  Romney  being  conferred  on  Sidney  three 
years  later.  One,  dated  22  A,  90  (April  22),  to  show 
to  the  King,  asks  permission  to  live  quietly  in  England 
or  America.  In  the  other  letter  to  Sidney,  Penn  offers 
to  appear,  if  he  will  be  believed,  but  says  that  he  can 
not  come  out  of  retirement,  and  put  himself  in  the 
power  of  his  enemies:  he  denies  all  knowledge  of  in- 
vasions or  insurrections  or  men,  money,  or  arms  there- 
for, or  juncto  or  consult  in  order  thereto,  and  says 
that  he  never  met  any  of  those  named  as  conspirators, 

or  prepared  measures  with  anybody  for  Lord . 

[Janney  queries,  Sunderland?  but  evidently  Preston 
is  meant]  to  carry  with  him  as  one  sense  or  judgment, 
nor  did  Penn  know  of  his,  said  Lord's,  being  sent  for 
any  such  voyage,  and  adds :  * '  If  I  saw  him  a  few  days 
before  by  his  great  importunity,  as  some  say,  I  am 


England.  257 

able  to  defend  myself  from  the  imputations  cast  upon 
me,  and  that  with  great  truth  and  sincerity,  though  in 
rigour,  perhaps,  it  may  incur  the  censure  of  a  misde- 
meanor, and  therefore  I  have  no  reason  to  own  it  with- 
out an  assurance  that  no  hurt  should  ensue  to  me." 
This  letter  is  undated,  but,  from  the  answer,  we  find 
that  it  was  written  as  King  William  was  hurrying  to 
Holland,  whither  he  went  in  May.     Neither  Penn's 
story  nor  his  body  for  punishment  seems  afterwards 
to  have  been  sought.    There  was  a  report,  which  Ma- 
caulay  can  not  be  blamed  for  accepting,  that  Penn  fled 
to  France.    Eobert  Harley,  writing  to  Sir  Edward  Har- 
ley  on  Sep.  15,  says:    "William  Penn  got  safe  into 
France    last   week."      This    accords    with    Luttrell's 
Brief  Relation,  which,  noting  events  of  that  month, 
says  "Wm.  Penn  the  quaker  is  gott  off  from  Shoreham 
in  Sussex  and  gone  for  France."    It  seems,  however, 
that  he  stayed  in  London.    Otherwise,  some  notice  of 
his  having  been  at  St.  Germain  would  have  been  taken 
by  officials  in  the  course  of  the  years  next  following. 

We  may  conclude  that  there  was  no  proof  before 
King  William's  officials,  at  least  before  those  not  par- 
ticularly Penn's  friends,  to  convict  him  of  knowingly 
aiding  James.  Had  there  been,  Penn  would  have  been 
deprived,  if  not  of  life,  certainly  of  property,  and  prob- 
ably of  both.  It  would  have  been  necessary  to  make 
an  example  of  him.  There  would  have  been  no  mercy 
shown  to  please  such  a  weak  body  as  the  Quakers.  His 
wealth  would  have  added  to  the  means  of  satisfying  the 
adventurers  in  William's  train;  and  statecraft,  in  the 
interest  not  only  of  the  new  party,  but  of  the  empire 
at  large,  was  demanding  the  revocation  of  the  grant  of 
Pennsylvania. 

John  Wilmot,  Earl  of  Rochester,  lost  some  favor 
with  Charles  II  by  writing  the  following,  over  the 
latter 's  bedchamber  door,  it  is  said: 


17 


258  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

"Here  lies  our  Sovereign  Lord  the  King 
"Whose  word  no  man  relies  on; 

"He  never  says  a  foolish  thing, 
"Nor  ever  does  a  wise  one." 
Surely  no  public  act  could  have  exceeded  in  folly  the 
grant  of  Pennsylvania  to  William  Penn.  Some  econo- 
mies, perhaps  greater  than  the  withholding  of  some  of 
the  jewels  scattered  on  ladies  of  the  court,  would  have 
enabled  the  debt  of  the  Crown  to  his  father  to  be  paid. 
Yet,  instead  of  this,  there  was  sacrificed — a  worse 
bargain  that  the  Indians  made  for  tracts  of  the  land 
— something  like  45,000,000  acres.  Charles,  to  be  sure, 
was  ignorant  of  their  mineral  wealth,  which,  could  the 
ore  land  have  been  retained  until  our  day,  would  have 
made  the  Admiral's  present  heir-at-law  the  richest  man 
in  the  World.  What  was  then  more  to  be  considered, 
and  should  have  been  plain  to  any  statesman,  the  fron- 
tier approaching  the  French,  and  the  middle  of  the 
strip  of  territory  which  England  owned  in  America, 
was  to  be  peopled  with  non-resistants,  was  to  be  made 
smooth  for  the  advance  of  an  enemy  designing  to  cut 
the  territory  in  two!  And  the  danger  might  remain 
even  if  relations  with  France  were  friendly:  the 
Spaniards  in  Mexico  could  send  an  expedition  without 
crossing  the  ocean,  and  no  one  could  be  sure  that 
Sweden  or  Holland,  possibly  recovering  the  strength 
so  recently  lost,  would  not  again  secure  footing  on  the 
shores  of  Delaware  Bay.  Even  in  the  unhoped  for 
contingency  of  the  Proprietary  and  his  tenants  being 
willing  to  take  up  arms,  military  considerations  called 
for  a  single  strong  colony  in  the  space  between  New 
England  and  Virginia,  instead  of  several  under  inde- 
pendent and  disagreeing  governments.  New  York, 
which  protected  New  England  on  the  west,  was  weak- 
ened by  the  creation  of  a  rival  with  charter  boundaries 
enclosing  the  seats  of  those  Indians  who  had  been  New 
York's  allies  in  war,  as  well  as  purveyors  of  New 


England.  259 

York's  chief  article  of  commerce.  We  need  not  lay- 
stress  on  the  agricultural  productiveness  of  the  region 
formerly  claimed  by,  and  thus  taken  away  from  New 
York;  for  such  was  not  then  known.  It  was  seen,  how- 
ever, by  Gov.  Dongan  shortly  after  the  grant  to  Penn, 
that  the  loss  of  the  beaver  and  peltry  trade  would  deter 
Europeans  from  settling  in  the  Hudson  Valley,  if, 
indeed,  it  would  not  cause  the  departure  of  the  whites ; 
while  the  Indians  in  question,  who  had  saved  New 
England  in  the  preceding  Indian  war,  and  could  bring 
3000  or  4000  warriors  to  decide  a  conflict,  threatened 
to  remove  to  the  other  side  of  Lake  Ontario,  rather 
than  live  under  any  government  south  of  it  other  than 
that  of  New  York.  Dongan  proposed  that  a  line  be 
run  at  the  latitude  of  41°  40'  from  the  Delaware  to  the 
Susquehanna,  which  line,  he  understood,  would  strike 
the  falls  in  what  is  now  Bradford  County,  Pa.,  and  that 
Penn  be  content  with  what  was  below  that  line.  The 
attitude  of  the  Five  Nations  has  been  mentioned  in  the 
chapter  on  the  Red  Neighbours.  The  authorities  of 
the  City  of  New  York  addressed  the  King  as  to  the 
injury  done  to  it.  Governor  Sloughter,  appointed  over 
New  York  by  William  and  Mary,  wrote  that,  to  defray 
the  charges  of  government,  and  for  maintaining  the 
war,  it  would  be  necessary  to  bring  Connecticut,  East 
and  West  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania  under  New  York, 
and,  on  Aug.  6,  1691,  after  Sloughter 's  death;  the  next 
Governor  and  the  Council  said  that  no  step  could  be 
more  conducive  to  the  safety  of  their  Majesties'  sub- 
jects in  America. 

In  time  of  peace,  even,  the  direction  of  a  great  em- 
pire was  interfered  with  by  having  an  enormous  dis- 
trict to  which  a  uniform  system  of  administration  could 
not  extend,  where  a  feudal  baron  was  at  least  to  be 
notified,  and  the  tenantry  owing  him  allegiance,  and 
perhaps  under  his  influence,  could  nullify  what  the  ma- 
jority of  the  race  or  nation  favored.     Witness   the 


260  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

question  of  Admiralty  courts  in  Maryland  and  South 
Carolina  as  well  as  Pennsylvania. 

When  war  was  declared  by  William  and  Mary 
against  France,  the  Proprietary  of  Pennsylvania  was 
a  non-resistant  suspected  of  treason,  the  Proprietary 
of  Maryland  was  a  Eoman  Catholic,  the  Proprietors  of 
South  Carolina  included  a  Quaker  and  an  aged  ex- 
soldier  under  James.  On  May  16,  1689,  the  Committee 
of  the  Privy  Council  for  Trade  and  Plantations  de- 
cided to  represent  to  the  King  that  the  relation  in 
which  those  three  provinces  stood  to  the  government 
of  England  should  receive  the  consideration  of  Parlia- 
ment for  bringing  them  under  a  near  dependence  on 
the  Crown. 

The  needs  of  New  York  for  assistance  from  her 
neighbours,  and  the  accusations  against  Penn,  singled 
out  Pennsylvania  for  attention.  It  was  argued  by  many 
persons  that  all  powers  granted  by  royal  patent,  being 
subject  to  the  King's  sovereignty,  could  be  resumed 
by  the  King,  if,  by  dereliction  on  the  part  of  the 
grantee,  the  latter  forfeited  them,  or  if,  by  any  circum- 
stances, there  was  imminent  danger  of  that  part  of  the 
realm  being  lost.  Some  lawyers  went  further,  and 
thought  that  the  powers  of  government  granted  to 
William  Penn,  involving  the  revenue  of  the  Crown, 
legislation,  life  and  death,  arming  the  subjects,  and 
waging  war,  were  part  of  the  regalia  of  the  Sovereign, 
and  that  Charles  II 's  alienation  of  them  was  valid  dur- 
ing that  monarch's  life  only.  No  judicial  decision  was 
sought  by  the  government.  There  were  sufficient  com- 
plaints of  failure  in  the  administration  of  justice,  the 
Proprietary  was  not  able  to  perform  personally  the 
duties  of  Governor,  there  was  clearly  danger  of  foreign 
conquest,  to  justify,  under  the  less  radical  theory,  a 
measure  necessary  for  protection.  On  March  9, 1691-2, 
the  Committee  for  Trade  agreed  to  report  to  the  Privy 
Council    that    a    temporary    commission    should    be 


England.  261 

granted  to  Colonel  Fletcher,  Governor  of  New  York, 
to  command  and  lead  out  of  the  Jerseys  as  many  as 
700  of  the  militia  thereof  for  the  defence  of  New  York 
and  Albany,  in  case  of  any  attempt  by  the  French  and 
Indians,  also  for  Col.  Fletcher  to  take  the  Province  of 
Pennsylvania  under  his  command.  It  was  several 
months  before  the  commission  for  these  purposes  was 
put  in  shape.  Under  date  of  Oct.  21,  in  the  4th  year 
of  the  reign,  Benjamin  Fletcher  was  constituted 
Captain-General  and  Governor-in-Chief  of  the  Prov- 
ince of  Pennsylvania  and  Country  of  New  Castle  and 
all  tracts  of  land  depending  thereon,  with  like  powers 
as  in  his  commission  of  March  18  preceding  as  Captain- 
General  and  Governor-in-Chief  of  New  York,  and  was 
commanded  to  act  according  to  instructions  given  then 
or  afterwards,  and  according  to  such  reasonable  laws 
and  statutes  as  were  then  in  force,  or  as  he  might 
agree  upon  with  the  consent  of  the  Council  and  As- 
sembly of  Pennsylvania  and  New  Castle,  he  to  appoint 
over  the  region  a  Lieutenant-Governor  and  not  exceed- 
ing twelve  Councillors  from  the  principal  freeholders 
and  inhabitants,  three  to  be  a  quorum.  The  commis- 
sion for  New  York  gave  him  a  negative  in  the  making 
of  laws,  and  power,  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the 
Council,  to  appoint  Judges  and  officers.  He  was  to 
exercise  certain  military  authority.  His  governor- 
ship &ct.  of  Pennsylvania  &ct.  was  to  continue  dur- 
ing their  Majesties'  pleasure,  and  in  case  of  his  death 
or  absence,  the  powers  were  to  be  exercised  by  who- 
ever might  for  the  time  being  be  Commander-in-Chief 
of  New  York,  and  in  the  absence  of  such,  by  the  Coun- 
cil of  New  York. 

Penn,  in  9th  month,  wrote  to  Robert  Turner  that  it 
was  a  pity  that  the  Delawareans  had  not  remained 
united  in  civil  affairs  with  the  Quaker  Province;  for 
they  could  not  only  defend  the  whole  of  his  possessions, 
but  also  resist  this  commission.    He  added :  * '  I  expect 


262  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

a  firm  adherence  to  the  patent,  my  freehold  and  inheri- 
tance." He  instructed  his  officers  to  object  to  Fletcher 
exercising  his  commission,  and  if  he  did  not  desist, 
then  to  draw  up  exceptions,  and  lay  them  before  the 
Lords  of  the  Committee  for  Trade,  and  also  before 
" Friends  concerned  in  the  province  here,"  who  would 
appear  before  the  Committee.  Finally,  Penn  ex- 
pressed confidence  that  the  courts  at  Westminister 
Hall  or  the  House  of  Lords  on  appeal  would  do  him 
justice.  This  seems  like  bluster  in  a  man  who  may  be 
considered  lucky  that  he  was  allowed  to  live ;  but  bold- 
ness was  perhaps  the  best  policy.  Penn  also  warned 
Fletcher  not  to  interfere  with  the  deputies  commis- 
sioned by  Penn. 

We  do  not  find  that  there  was  any  attempt  in 
America  to  carry  out  Penn's  plan  of  campaign  against 
the  appointee  of  the  Crown;  and  it  is  noticeable  how 
little  anybody  seemed  to  care  for  Penn's  claims.  The 
people  of  Delaware  probably  rejoiced  at  the  change. 
We  would  have  expected  the  Indians  to  say  something 
nice  about  their  great  friend:  on  the  contrary,  some 
"from  the  upper  part  of  the  river,"  coming  to  ask 
Fletcher's  protection  from  the  Senecas,  complained  of 
the  Quakers,  because  they  never  encouraged  or  assisted 
them  to  fight.  Over  one  hundred  inhabitants  of  Phila- 
delphia County  signed  an  address  acknowledging  the 
favor  done  to  them  by  the  King  and  Queen.  The 
Keithian  Quakers  were  glad  to  escape  subjection  to 
Thomas  Lloyd;  while  Lloyd  welcomed  removal  from 
an  office  which  was  an  expense  to  him. 

After  notice  to  Lloyd,  Fletcher,  between  11  and  12 
o'clock  in  the  forenoon  of  April  26,  1693,  arrived  in 
Philadelphia  with  a  military  escort.  The  Sheriff  of  the 
County  went  to  meet  him,  and  conducted  him  to  the 
market  place,  then  Front  and  Market  Streets;  and 
there,  although  the  leading  Quakers  did  not  counte- 
nance  by   their  presence   the   transfer   of   authority, 


England.  263 

Lloyd  slipping  away  when  the  commission  was  about 
to  be  read,  the  royal  commission  to  Fletcher  was  read 
to  the  public  without  protest.  Penn  was  displeased  at 
the  acquiescence  shown  by  Lloyd  and  others,  who 
merely  held  aloof  from  the  new  government.  After- 
wards Penn  realized  that  they  could  have  done  nothing 
more. 

Fletcher  at  once  showed  courtesy.  He  immediately 
sent  for  Lloyd,  and  offered  him  the  first  place  in  the 
Council.  Lloyd  refusing,  as  Fletcher  was  confident  he 
would,  that  place  was  given  to  Markham,  who  the  next 
day  was  nominated  Lieutenant-Governor.  The  others 
whom  Fletcher  had  chosen  as  Councillors,  viz,  Andrew 
Robeson,  Robert  Turner,  Patrick  Robinson,  Lawrence 
(or  Lasse)  Cock,  and  William  Salway,  unanimously 
approved  of  the  appointment  of  Markham.  After- 
wards, William  Clark,  George  Forman,  and  John  Cann 
were  taken  into  the  Council,  and,  later  still,  Charles 
Sanders,  Griffith  Jones  (probably  the  lawyer),  and 
John  Donnaldson.  In  order  to  have  an  Assembly  meet 
on  May  15,  1693,  writs,  under  resolution  of  the  Council 
of  April  27,  were  issued  for  the  election  of  four 
Assemblymen  from  Philadelphia  County,  four  from 
New  Castle  County,  and  three  from  each  of  the  other 
Counties.  This  caused  a  letter  to  be  presented  to 
Fletcher  by  seven  of  Lloyd's  Councillors,  in  behalf  of 
the  freemen,  asking  that  no  other  method  of  calling 
their  legislative  power  be  used  than  that  prescribed  by 
the  received  laws.  The  letter  was  addressed  to  "Ben- 
jamin Fletcher,  Esqr.,  Captain  Generall  and  Gover- 
nor-in-Chief  &ct.,"  but,  by  not  naming  Pennsylvania 
and  Country  of  New  Castle,  did  not  express  a  recogni- 
tion of  his  authority  over  the  region.  Fletcher's  Coun- 
cil decided  that,  with  such  an  address,  it  would  not  be 
consistent  with  his  commission  to  pay  any  attention,  or 
give  an  answer  to  the  letter.  Fletcher  offered  to  reap- 
point Jennings,  Cooke,  Ewer,  Owen,  and  Morris  as 


264  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Justices,  but  all  except  Morris  declined.    Samuel  Car- 
penter declined  appointment. 

The  Lloydian  Quakers,  but  not  Thomas  Lloyd  him- 
self, undertook  to  maintain  their  privileges  before 
Fletcher,  who,  however,  was  more  powerful  than 
Blackwell,  being  armed  with  authority  from  the  King 
and  Queen,  not  hampered  by  instructions,  and  not  re- 
quired to  fight  his  Councillors,  of  whom,  although  two, 
Markham  and  Turner,  had  been  friends  of  the  Pro- 
prietary, none  were  followers  of  Lloyd.  The  Quakers 
were  driven  back  to  the  Assembly,  holding  fourteen 
out  of  the  twenty  seats  filled  at  the  first  election.  David 
Lloyd  was  one  of  the  members  from  Chester,  and,  being 
the  only  lawyer  in  the  body,  is  to  be  largely  credited 
with  what  was  accomplished  at  the  session.  For  about 
thirty  years  afterwards,  he  was  the  leader  of  the  de- 
mocracy of  the  Province.  Unlike  Blackwell,  the  bluff, 
downright,  and  energetic  Fletcher  made  no  stand  on 
the  etiquette  due  to  him,  and,  to  secure  the  main  point, 
was  willing  to  come  to  an  accommodation  in  minor  de- 
tails. As  an  act  of  grace,  with  the  stipulation  that  it 
was  not  to  be  treated  as  a  precedent,  he  allowed  the 
Quaker  members  to  serve  without  taking  an  oath,  but 
the  declaration  of  faith  and  test  was  presented  to  and 
subscribed  by  them.  Complimenting  Growdon,  who 
was  elected  Speaker,  Fletcher  laid  before  the  House  a 
letter  from  Queen  Mary,  dated  Oct.  11,  1692,  signed  by 
the  Earl  of  Nottingham,  directing  the  Governor  of 
Pennsylvania  to  send  such  assistance  in  men  or  other- 
wise as  the  colony  could  furnish,  for  the  defence  of 
Albany,  upon  application  from  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  New  York,  and  to  join  with  the  Governors  of 
New  England,  Virginia,  and  Maryland  in  fixing  upon 
the  quota  of  each  colony.  Fletcher  told  the  Assembly : 
' '  If  there  be  any  amongst  you  that  scruple  the  giving  of 
money  to  support  war,  there  are  a  great  many  other 
charges  in  that  government  for  the  support  thereof  as 


England.  265 

officers'  salaries  and  other  charges  that  amount  to  a  con- 
siderable sum :  your  money  shall  be  converted  to  these 
uses,  and  shall  not  be  dipt  in  blood. ' '  He  then  argued  to 
them  that  the  walls  around  their  gardens  and  orchards, 
the  doors  and  locks  of  their  houses,  the  mastiff  dogs 
which  they  made  use  of  to  defend  their  property  against 
robbers,  were  the  same  as  forts,  garrisons,  and  soldiers, 
which  their  Majesties  made  use  of  to  defend  their  king- 
doms and  provinces  and  all  their  subjects,  including 
those  whom  he  was  addressing.  The  House,  replying 
with  a  preamble  that  the  King  and  Queen  had  appointed 
him  to  supply  the  want  of  the  Proprietary's  personal 
attendance,  asked  that  the  procedure  in  legislation  be 
according  to  the  usual  method  and  laws  founded  on  the 
late  King's  letters  patent,  which  the  members  con- 
ceived to  be  yet  in  force,  and  that  the  same  be  confirmed 
to  them  as  their  rights  and  liberties.  Fletcher,  point- 
ing out  how  inconsistent  the  Frame  of  Government 
was  with  his  commission,  plainly  told  them  that  they 
could  not  keep  the  former,  it  having  fallen  at  Charles 
II 's  death,  but,  if  the  Assembly  would  propose  any  laws 
for  the  convenience  or  safety  of  the  colony,  he,  the 
Governor,  would  concur  therein,  if  consistent  with  the 
trust  reposed  in  him.  The  House  then  resolved  unani- 
mously that  it  could  act  in  legislation  with  the  Gov- 
ernor, and  added  a  proviso  that  the  People  could  be 
governed  under  the  laws  and  constitution  as  far  as 
consistent  with  Fletcher's  commission.  Fletcher  re- 
plied that  certain  of  their  laws,  being  repugnant  to 
those  of  England,  he  would  not  reenact.  The  Assembly 
in  a  Petition  of  Right,  presented  on  May  24th,  taking 
care  to  omit  the  laws  to  which  Fletcher  objected,  set 
forth  that  203  laws,  passed  under  King  Charles's 
Charter,  and  which,  according  to  the  Petition,  had  been 
transmitted  to  the  King,  and  not  disapproved  of  as  the 
Charter  provided,  had  not  been  repealed,  and  were  still 
in  force,  and  asked  the  Governor  to  cause  them  to  be 


266  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

executed.  Fletcher  asked  for  a  certified  copy  of  them, 
doubted  their  presentation  to  the  King,  and  argued 
that  the  seal  of  Penn  or  his  deputy  was  essential  to 
their  enactment,  but,  the  House  having  made  a  codi- 
fication into  86  chapters,  Fletcher,  on  June  1,  ordered 
the  code  to  be  enforced  until  their  Majesties'  pleasure 
were  known.  Thirty  other  laws  were  passed,  by  one  of 
which  the  representatives  of  the  People  expressed  their 
humble  submission  to  the  King  and  Queen 's  pleasure  in 
taking  the  government  into  their  own  hands,  and  pre- 
sented to  them, ' '  as  a  testimony  of  our  dutyful  affections 
towards  them,"  a  tax  to  be  spent  by  the  Governor  for 
the  support  of  the  government,  asking  their  Majesties 
to  allow  one  half  to  Governor  Fletcher  himself.  The 
rate  was  Id.  per  I.  of  the  valuation  (to  be  fixed  by  the 
Assemblymen  from  the  county  with  the  assistance  of 
three  substantial  freeholders)  of  all  real  and  personal 
estate  over  and  above  the  owners'  indebtedness,  and 
65  per  head  on  certain  freemen  not  worth  100?.,  with 
an  exemption  in  favor  of  those  who  had  a  great  charge 
of  children,  and  were  not  worth  301.  The  Proprietary 
and  his  late  deputies  were  exempted,  which  was  not 
unreasonable  in  the  case  of  Thomas  Lloyd,  who  had 
been  at  considerable  expense  as  Lieutenant-Governor. 
One  act  of  Assembly  is  worthy  of  note,  and  Fletcher 
had  done  the  colony  a  service  in  suggesting  it,  viz :  that 
for  the  extension  to  Pennsylvania  and  Territories  of 
the  post  office  inaugurated  by  Andrew  Hamilton  (sub- 
sequently Lieutenant-Governor).  The  act  fixed  the 
rates  for  private  letters  and  packets,  that  for  carrying 
a  letter  from  New  York  to  Philadelphia  or  in  the  re- 
verse direction  being  \\&. 

Fletcher  refused  to  pass  a  law  offered  by  the  Assem- 
bly, disqualifying  a  man  getting  drunk  from  voting  or 
being  elected,  which  Fletcher  declared  the  freeholder's 
birthright  as  much  as  his  name.  Fletcher  said  "I  will 
give  you  leave  to  banish  me  out  of  the  government 


England.  267 

when  you  shall  find  me  drunk."  He  expressed  his 
readiness  to  impose  fine  or  corporal  punishment,  but, 
not  flatteringly,  said  that  he  believed,  if  the  proposed 
bill  were  applied  to  the  present  Assembly  in  the  strict- 
ness of  it,  there  would  be  but  a  thin  House. 

A  quarrel  with  the  Council  was  the  last  event  of  the 
session.  The  Assemblymen  proposed  a  bill  giving  6s. 
a  day  wages  to  themselves.  The  Governor  asked  why 
not  also  for  the  Councillors,  particularly  Lieutenant- 
Governor  Markham?  The  Assemblymen  were  unwill- 
ing, and  the  Councillors  rejected  the  bill.  Fletcher,  de- 
parting on  the  day  or  the  day  after  the  Assembly  was 
adjourned,  left  Markham  at  the  head  of  affairs.  The 
impossibility  of  securing  any  appropriation  directly 
for  war,  induced  Fletcher  about  this  time  to  urge  upon 
the  King  the  union  of  Pennsylvania  (including  the 
Lower  Counties),  New  York,  the  Jerseys,  and  Con- 
necticut under  one  Assembly,  which  Assembly  could 
not  be  controlled  by  Quakers.  It  is  said  that  William 
III  personally  favored  this. 

In  the  year  1693,  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  with  the 
advice  of  the  Council,  moved  the  market  from  Dela- 
ware Front  and  High  Streets  to  the  middle  of  High 
Street  where  Second  Street  crossed  it,  and  ordered  the 
market  to  be  kept  on  Wednesdays  and  Saturdays  after 
the  ringing  of  a  bell,  and  provided  that  all  provisions, 
viz:  flesh,  fish,  tame  fowl,  butter,  eggs,  cheese,  herbs, 
fruits,  roots,  &ct,  brought  to  town  for  sale  be  sold  in 
the  market  place,  even  if  not  coming  to  town  on  market 
days.  Fees  were  established  for  killing  animals  in  the 
market. 

Another  Assembly  for  Pennsylvania  and  Territories 
was  called  to  meet  on  April  10,  1694,  the  Councillors 
doing  their  best  to  have  tractable  members  selected: 
but  those  returned  from  Philadelphia,  Bucks,  and 
Chester  were  all  Quakers,  besides  one  from  New 
Castle  and  one  from  Kent.     David  Lloyd  was  made 


268  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Speaker.  When  it  was  proposed  for  the  Lieutenant- 
Governor  to  adjourn  the  session  until  Fletcher,  who 
had  been  detained  by  military  affairs,  could  reach 
Philadelphia,  a  remonstrance  was  voted  maintaining 
the  Assembly's  right  to  adjourn  itself.  It  was  finally 
agreed  by  Markliam,  his  Council,  and  the  Assembly 
that  the  adjournment  be  to  May  22.  Fletcher  met  the 
House  on  May  23,  and  asked,  if  the  members  would  not 
carry  arms,  or  levy  war,  would  they  not  feed  the  hungry, 
and  clothe  the  naked,  that  is,  supply  the  Indians  of  the 
Five  Nations,  now  poor,  naked,  and  cut  off  by  the  war 
from  hunting,  with  such  necessaries  as  would  influence 
them  to  continue  in  friendship  with  the  English?  He 
himself,  having  given  those  Indians  one  hundred  days 
from  the  day  of  his  conference  with  them  to  consider 
their  answer,  would  meet  them  with  the  sword  in  one 
hand,  and  presents  in  the  other.  It  was  ascertained 
that  the  tax  granted  the  preceding  year  would  amount 
to  about  £500  sterling  with  salaries  for  collection  taken 
out.  The  Governor,  on  June  1,  sent  a  message  asking 
for  an  answer  to  the  Queen's  letter,  which  had  not  been 
referred  to  in  the  law  imposing  the  tax.  The  Assembly 
declared  the  law  a  compliance  with  the  letter  as  far  as 
the  religious  convictions  of  the  majority  would  per- 
mit, and  furthermore  looked  upon  the  amount  as  the 
colonists'  full  share,  and  complained  that,  at  the  con- 
ference which  Fletcher  had  held  with  the  Indians  at 
Albany,  the  former  Assembly's  action  had  not  been 
properly  set  forth:  if  the  expenditure  of  money  upon 
the  Indians  would  be  accepted  as  a  compliance  with 
the  order  to  assist  New  York,  the  Assemblymen  were 
willing  that  any  sums  voted  for  support  of  the  govern- 
ment be  applied  in  that  way.  They  offered,  among 
other  laws,  another  tax  of  Id.  per  pound,  200?.  of  the 
amount  raised  to  be  allowed  to  Col.  Markham,  200/.  to 
remunerate  Thomas  Lloyd  for  his  late  services,  and  the 
balance  to  be  spent  in  presents  for  the  Indians.  Fletcher 


England.  269 

and  his  Council  refused  to  pass  this,  saying  that  the 
proper  form  was  to  grant  the  sum  to  the  King  and 
Queen,  and  pray  them  to  allow  the  sums  to  Markham 
and  Lloyd.    A  further  objection  was  that  the  bill  ap- 
pointed the  Receiver-General  of  the  proceeds,  instead 
of  leaving  the  appointment  to  the  representative  of 
the  Crown ;  and,  in  fact,  it  was  rather  a  reflection  upon 
Robert  Turner,  who  had  acted  as  Receiver  of  the  pre- 
ceding tax.    Finding  no  likelihood  of  a  satisfactory  bill 
being  passed,  Fletcher  dissolved  the  Assembly  on  the 
afternoon  of  June  9,  1694,  allowing  some  laws,  and 
disapproving  of  one  for  giving  Assemblymen  6s.  a  day, 
instead  of  the  old  allowance  of  3s.,  and  also  disapprov- 
ing of  a  new  system  of  county  levies,  whereby  the  Jus- 
tices and  Assemblymen  of  the  County  were  to  fix  them, 
even  for  the  purpose  of  paying  debts,  perhaps  twelve 
years  old.    The  general  practice  in  England  and  the 
colonies  was  for  the  grand  jury  at  the  Quarter  Sessions 
to   make   presentment   of   the   amount   to   be   raised. 
Fletcher  went  away  on  June   26,  having  asked  his 
Council  to  decide  whether  he  should  not,  as  a  com- 
pliance with  the  Queen's  letter,  array  the  whole  colony, 
and  detach  at  least  50  men  for  the  assistance  of  Albany. 
Let  us  not  dispute  any  Quaker's  belief  that  for  Penn's 
escape  from  death  on  the  scaffold  and  the  colony's  re- 
tention of  whatever  advantages  it  had  under  the  Charter 
to  him,  there  was  a  special  interposition  of  Divine 
Providence.    In  no  contradictory  humor,  there  can  be 
pointed  out  for  a  secondary  cause,  that  Penn,  with  or 
most  frequently  without  any  ulterior  end  than  the  dis- 
connected act  which  he  was  promoting,  had  so  used  his 
opportunities  in  the  preceding  reigns,  and  conducted 
himself  since,  as  to  place  in  his  hands  wires  which  rami- 
fied far,  in  fact  almost,  at  some  time  or  other,  every- 
where, in  the  complex  and  changing  jumble  of  political 
affairs.    His  activities  had  made  him,  if  not  the  asso- 
ciate, and  even  if  sometimes  an  opponent,  yet  an  ac- 


270  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

quaintance  at  least  of  everybody.  What  anger  he  had 
felt,  did  not  prevent  a  readjustment  of  relations.  His 
personal  charm  and  his  lofty  sentiments  predisposed 
in  his  favor  those  who  were  not  leading  partisans  in 
opposition  to  him.  With  his  influence  with  James  II, 
great  enough  to  do  individuals  a  good  turn,  Penn  had 
followed  the  injunction 

' '  Cast  thy  bread  upon  the  waters : ' ' 
and  the  promise 

' '  for  thou  shalt  find  it  after  many  days ' ' 
was  fulfilled  in  the  recovery  of  not  only  his  life  and 
liberty,  but  also  his  viceregal  powers.  It  was  not 
merely  the  chance  to  escape  some  mild  trouble,  or  to 
make  money,  or  to  rise,  that  he  had  given  to  men  who 
afterwards,  some  quite  unexpectedly,  were  in  a  position 
to  make  some  return  to  him.  At  the  bureaus,  the 
Council  boards,  and  the  Cabinet  ministers'  desks  were 
those  who  owed  to  Penn  their  very  lives.  One  instance 
will  suffice.  A  few  months  before  the  Revolution,  Penn, 
in  his  own  coach,  drawn  by  four  horses,  took  Sir  John 
Trenchard  to  Windsor,  where,  leading  him  into  the 
King's  presence,  Penn  secured  Trenchard 's  pardon, 
notwithstanding  his  complicity  in  the  Monmouth  and 
Lord  Russell  affairs,  and  his  having  been  exempted 
from  a  general  offer  of  pardon.  After  the  Revolution, 
Trenchard  speedily  helped  Penn  financially  by  buying 
the  four  horses:  but  this  had  scarcely  left  Trenchard 
quit  of  obligation.  After  Penn  was  deprived  of  the 
government  of  his  province,  Trenchard  became  one  of 
the  Secretaries  of  State. 

In  a  letter,  undated  but  written  probably  in  October, 
1693,  to  the  Earl  of  Rochester  (Laurence  Hyde,  the 
Queen's  uncle,  created  Earl  in  1682),  Penn  spoke  of  a 
desire  to  go  to  Pennsylvania,  but  said  that  he  would 
not  accept  liberty  on  condition  of  going,  so  as  to  be 
looked  upon  as  ''an  articled  exile,"  and  he  must  go  to 
Ireland  to  settle  his  almost  ruined  estate,  and  to  take 


England.  271 

off  the  prosecution  against  him  begun  upon  Fuller's  evi- 
dence, and  therefore  the  departure  for  America  could 
not  be  before  the  following  Spring.  On  Nov.  25, 
Rochester  and  the  Earl  of  Ranelagh,  who  was  an  Irish 
peer,  and  Viscount  Sidney  went  to  the  King,  and  repre- 
sented Penn's  case  as  a  hard  one,  there  being  no  evi- 
dence against  him,  except  that  of  imposters,  fugitives, 
or  those  who  since  their  pardon  had  refused  to  stand 
by  their  first  assertions,  whereas  these  lords  had  known 
him  long  and  favorably  for  many  good  deeds ;  further- 
more these  lords  explained  that  he  might  have  gone 
abroad  two  years  before,  had  he  not  been  unwilling  to 
seem  to  defy  the  government,  and  now  he  was  waiting 
for  leave  to  go  about  his  affairs.  King  William  replied 
that  Penn  was  also  his  old  acquaintance,  and  should  be 
allowed  to  follow  his  business,  as  there  was  nothing  to 
say  to  him.  By  the  King's  command,  Secretary  of 
State  Trenchard,  on  the  30th,  discharged  Penn.  Penn 
went  from  the  Secretary's  to  the  Friends  Meeting,  and 
spoke  for  the  first  time  for  nearly  three  years.  Dixon 
is  probably  right  in  identifying  the  Mr.  Penn  who  was 
reported  as  saying  about  this  time  that  James  II  had 
the  most  favorable  opportunity  for  an  invasion,  as 
being  Neville  Payne.  On  12mo.  4,  William  Penn  wrote 
to  certain  Friends  in  Pennsylvania  for  a  large  loan,  on 
receipt  of  which  he  would  sail  thither,  God  giving  him 
health,  in  three  or  at  most  six  months.  This  loan  was 
not  made ;  but  some  of  the  Quakers  decided  on  the  plan, 
as  Fletcher  says  in  a  letter  of  Aug.  18,  1694,  of  send- 
ing delegates  to  England  to  secure  power  to  act  under 
their  former  commissions,  or,  if  they  could  not  ac- 
complish Penn's  restoration,  to  have  the  government 
annexed  to  that  of  Maryland. 

We  would  have  expected  Penn  to  be  glad  that  he  was 
relieved  during  a  war  of  a  position  where  he  by  himself 
or  deputy  would  be  obliged  to  perform  military  duties, 
and  moreover  against  his  former  king :  but  to  the  natu- 


272  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

ral  desire  to  resume  place  and  authority  which  had  been 
arbitrarily  taken  away,  was  doubtless  added  the  con- 
viction that  the  powers  of  government  granted  by  King 
Charles's  patent  were  necessary  for  both  the  protec- 
tion of  the  Proprietary's  real  estate  rights  and  the 
happiness  and  prosperity  of  the  colony.  Penn  persisted 
in  claiming  that  the  King  and  Queen  were  misinformed, 
when  they  superseded  him  on  the  ground  of  failure  of 
justice  and  danger  of  capture  in  the  war.  However 
objectionable  proprietary  governments  were,  they  had 
been  too  long  settled  in  the  colonial  system  of  England 
to  be  declared  illegal.  Offices  and  franchises  were 
private  property,  which  could  be  taken  only  by  judicial 
process  or  the  fiat  of  King,  Lords,  and  Commons  in 
Parliament.  In  the  absence  of  William  III,  in  the 
Summer  of  1694,  the  Countess  of  Ranelagh  took  up 
Penn's  cause  with  Mary  II,  left  as  usual  as  sole 
sovereign,  and,  when  Penn  petitioned  for  restoration 
of  his  government,  she  was  favorably  disposed.  The 
petition  coming  before  the  Privy  Council,  was  referred 
on  July  12, 1694,  to  the  Committee  for  Trade  and  Plan- 
tations. The  next  day,  the  Attorney-General  and  So- 
licitor-General made  a  report  justifying  the  appoint- 
ment of  Fletcher  in  the  emergency,  for  the  reasons  set 
forth  in  his  commission,  but  finding  that,  when  the  oc- 
casion ceased,  the  right  of  government  belonged  to  the 
grantee  of  Charles  II  and  assignee  of  the  Duke  of  York. 
Penn,  waiting  outside  the  room  where  the  Committee 
was  sitting,  was  called  in  to  be  heard.  The  promises 
he  then  made  do  not  show  him  a  martyr  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  peace.  He  said  that  if  her  Majesty  would  be 
pleased  to  restore  him  to  his  property  according  to  the 
grant,  he  would  with  all  convenient  speed  go  to  Penn- 
sylvania, and  take  care  of  the  government,  and  provide 
for  the  safety  and  security  of  the  region,  as  far  as  in 
him  lay,  and  he  would  transmit  to  the  Provincial  Coun- 
cil and  Assembly  all   orders  from  her  Majesty  for 


England.  273 

supplying  quotas  of  men,  and  defraying  share  of  ex- 
pense, and — here  was  a  strange  statement  for  him  to 
make — he  doubted  not  that  they  would  be  fully  com- 
plied with.  Perhaps  he  thought  that  he  could  arrange 
for  a  non-Quaker  majority  in  Council  and  Assembly, 
or  obtain  volunteers  and  contributions  sufficient.  To 
prove  the  colonists'  loyalty  and  readiness  to  do  as  de- 
sired, he  then  exhibited  a  copy  of  the  Act  of  Assembly 
of  1693,  expressing  submission  to  their  Majesties' 
pleasure  in  taking  the  government  into  their  hands, 
and  moreover  levying  a  tax  to  be  spent  by  the  Govern- 
or appointed  by  the  King  and  Queen.  We  must  remem- 
ber that  Penn  had  not  heard  of  the  proceedings  of  the 
Assembly  dissolved  in  June,  nor  probably  of  the  small 
yield  from  the  tax.  The  Lords  of  the  Committee,  after 
these  stipulations  by  Penn,  referred  the  Act  levying  the 
tax  and  the  other  laws  passed  in  1693  to  the  Attorney- 
General.  The  Lords  decided  that,  on  learning  what  the 
Queen  fixed  as  Pennsylvania's  quota  for  the  safety  of 
New  York,  they  would  recommend,  on  the  strength  of 
Penn's  assurances,  the  restoration  of  the  government 
to  him.  On  July  27,  they,  probably  to  prevent  Penn 
from  appointing  a  Quaker,  extracted  from  him  a  prom- 
ise to  continue  Markham  as  Lieutenant-Governor;  and 
Penn  also  stipulated  to  submit  the  direction  of  military 
affairs  to  their  Majesties,  if  the  Assembly  of  Pennsyl- 
vania would  not  comply  with  the  orders  transmitted. 
The  validity  of  the  laws  of  1693,  passed  without  the 
Proprietary's  participation,  being  questionable,  his 
consent  in  writing  was  exacted  for  the  execution  of 
those  not  already  rejected  by  their  Majesties  in  Council. 
Certain  laws  were  disapproved,  but  most  were  left  until 
future  Assemblies  would  have  the  opportunity  to  re- 
peal them. 

On  August  20,  William  and  Mary,  reciting  that  they 
had  thought  fit  to  restore  William  Penn  to  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  government  of  Pennsylvania  and  New 

18 


274  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Castle  and  Territories,  annulled  the  appointment  of 
Fletcher  as  Governor  of  the  same.  By  letter  dated  the 
next  day,  addressed  to  the  Proprietary,  or,  in  his  ab- 
sence, the  Commander-in-Chief,  the  Queen  fixed  the 
quota  of  Pennsylvania  and  New  Castle,  to  be  furnished 
on  the  demand  of  the  Governor  of  New  York,  at  not 
exceeding  eighty  men  with  their  officers. 

Thomas  Lloyd  died  Sept.  (7  mo.)  10,  1694,  perhaps 
without  Penn  hearing  of  the  fact  before  arranging  the 
restored  government.  The  subsequent  prominence  of 
Lloyd's  sons-in-law,  grandchildren,  and  other  posterity 
by  blood  or  marriage,  made  him  the  patriarch  of  the 
most  important  family  connection  of  Colonial  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  three  Presidents  of  the  Supreme  Executive 
Council  of  Revolutionary  times,  Wharton,  Moore,  and 
Dickinson,  married  descendants. 

Penn,  on  Nov.  24,  while  in  Bristol  on  a  preaching 
tour,  constituted  Markham  "Governor,"  but,  as  simul- 
taneously Penn  appointed  two  Assistants,  viz:  John 
Goodson  and  Samuel  Carpenter,  both  moreover  Quar 
kers,  and  charged  Markham  in  all  things  to  govern  with 
the  advice  and  consent  of  at  least  one  of  them,  the  action 
was  scarcely  a  compliance  with  the  promise  to  the  Com- 
mittee. The  explanation,  as  given  in  the  document  ad- 
dressed to  Goodson  and  Carpenter,  was  the  frequent 
indisposition  of  Markham.  Penn  wrote  on  the  same 
day  to  Friends  in  Pennsylvania,  saying  "We  must 
creep  where  we  can  not  go,"  and  asking  them  not  to 
take  it  amiss  that  he  could  not  follow  what  was  his  in- 
clination as  well  as  theirs,  but  hoped  to  do  so  in  a  short 
time.  He  would  at  once,  and  probably  did,  write  to  the 
Assistants  to  consult  them  in  the  advice  and  consent 
they  might  give  to  his  cousin  Markhani.  In  December, 
Penn  induced  William  Ford  to  write,  as  Ford  did  on 
Dec.  14,  to  Secretary  Blathwayt  to  get  him  to  make 
the  Lords  understand  and  allow  that  Markham 's  in- 
vestment with  the  military  power  answered  the  sub- 


England.  275 

stance  of  the  promise  made  to  them,  and  that  the  civil 
affairs  be  in  the  hands  of  "those  more  suitable  to  the 
mind  and  improvement  of  the  colony." 

England,  notwithstanding  the  restoration  of  the 
government  to  William  Penn,  retained  or  subsequently 
imposed  her  control  over  his  dominions  in  several 
ways  quite  annoying  to  the  colonists.  In  the  first  place, 
by  King  Charles's  Charter,  the  Proprietaries  and  their 
Lieutenants  and  Governors  were  bound  to  admit  to  all 
ports  the  officers  appointed  by  the  Commissioners  or 
farmers  of  the  Customs,  and  to  allow  to  the  Crown  such 
impositions  and  customs  on  merchandise  laded  and  un- 
laded as  then  or  later  appointed  by  Act  of  Parliament. 
The  Charter  authorized  carrying  from  England  to 
Pennsylvania  under  the  customs  due  by  any  law  or 
statute  of  only  such  articles  as  not  prohibited  by  the 
law  and  statutes  to  be  carried  out  of  the  kingdoms,  and 
the  produce  of  the  country  was  to  be  carried  first  to 
England,  and,  if  afterwards  any  further,  then  under 
the  same  duties  as  the  subjects  in  England  paid,  and 
under  the  directions  of  the  Acts  of  Navigation  and 
other  laws. 

Various  Acts  of  Parliament  either  regulating  trade 
or  for  other  purposes  were  made  by  their  very  terms 
to  extend  to  the  American  Colonies. 

The  policy  of  the  Mother  Country  in  dealing  with 
the  American  colonies  was  to  subordinate  their  inter- 
ests to  hers.  Perhaps  it  was  not  yet  feared  that  if  they 
were  commercially  able  to  do  without  England,  they 
would  become  politically  independent;  but  it  was 
planned  that  they  should  supply  the  material,  while 
the  depots  and  factories  and  markets  should  be  in 
England.  Ireland,  Wales,  and  the  little  English  pos- 
session, Berwick  upon  the  Tweed,  were  usually  in- 
cluded in  the  measures  for  Protection,  so  as  to  share 
with  England  the  monopoly. 

Scotland,  although  her  King  was  King  of  England, 


276  '  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

was  until  the  Act  of  Union  of  Queen  Anne's  reign  a 
separate  realm,  with  distinct  officers,  nobility,  and 
Parliament ;  and  the  inhabitants  north  of  the  boundary 
between  the  two  countries  were  not  admitted  to  the 
rights  of  Englishmen  except  by  special  naturalization 
or  letters  of  denization,  and  as  to  some  privileges 
seemed  excluded  by  not  being  "native  born." 

An  Act  of  the  English  Parliament  passed  very  soon 
after  the  Restoration  of  Charles  II,  i.e.  12  Car.  II,  c.  18, 
for  the  encouraging  and  increasing  of  shipping  and 
navigation,  commonly  called  the  Act  of  Navigation, 
provided  that  after  Dec.  1,  1660,  nothing  should  be  im- 
ported into  or  exported  from  any  lands,  islands,  plan- 
tations, or  territories  belonging  to  or  in  possession  of 
the  King  in  Asia,  Africa,  or  America  (New  Nether- 
land  being  included,  for  the  Act  covered  future  posses- 
sions) in  any  other  vessels  than  those  belonging  to  the 
people  of  England,  Ireland,  Wales,  or  Berwick,  or  built 
in  and  belonging  to  the  people  of  any  of  said  planta- 
tions, and  whereof  the  master  and  three  fourths  at  least 
of  the  mariners  were  English.  The  penalty  was  loss 
of  goods  carried,  and  of  the  vessel  and  its  guns,  furni- 
ture, tackle,  ammunition,  and  apparel. 

It  was  further  provided  that  no  alien,  or  person  not 
born  within  the  allegiance  of  the  King  or  naturalized 
or  made  a  free  denizen,  should  after  Feb.  1,  1661 
(query,  1661-2?),  be  a  merchant  or  factor  in  any  of 
said  places,  on  pain  of  forfeiture  of  his  goods.  All 
Governors  of  plantations  and  all  future  Governors  ap- 
pointed by  the  King  were,  before  entrance  into  the 
government,  to  take  an  oath  to  do  their  utmost  to  have 
these  two  prohibitions  observed,  and  were,  upon  proof 
of  negligence,  to  be  removed.  No  goods  or  commodities 
of  the  growth  or  manufacture  of  Africa,  Asia,  or 
America  were  to  be  imported  into  England,  Ireland, 
Wales,  Guernsey,  Jersey,  or  Berwick  upon  Tweed  in 
any  other  vessels  but  such  as  belonged  to  people  of 


England.  277 

England,  Ireland,  Wales,  or  Berwick  or  the  planta- 
tions, and  whereof  the  master  and  three  fourths  at  least 
of  the  mariners  were  English.  No  Governor  of  any 
plantation  should  allow  any  foreign  built  vessel  to  load 
or  unload  any  commodities  until  a  certificate  were  pro- 
duced to  him  or  person  appointed  for  the  purpose  by 
him,  that  the  owners  had  taken  an  oath  that  said  vessel 
was  bought  for  valuable  consideration,  and  that  no 
foreigner  had  any  interest,  nor  until  examination  were 
made  whether  the  master  and  three  fourths  of  the  mari- 
ners were  English. 

It  was  further  enacted  that  after  April  1,  1661,  no 
sugar,  tobacco,  cotton-wool,  indigoes,  ginger,  fustic,  or 
other  dyewood  of  the  growth  or  manufacture  of  the 
plantations  should  be  carried  to  any  other  place  than 
the  other  plantations  or  England,  Ireland,  Wales,  or 
Berwick,  there  to  be  laid  on  shore.  Every  vessel  sail- 
ing from  England,  Ireland,  Wales,  or  Berwick  for  any 
English  plantation  was  required  to  give  security  to  the 
chief  officers  of  the  Custom  House  of  the  port  to  obey 
this  law  on  the  return  voyage.  For  all  ships  from  any 
other  port  or  place  with  which  any  of  said  plantations 
were  permitted  to  trade,  the  Governor  of  a  planta- 
tion, before  such  ship  was  to  be  permitted  to  load  there 
any  such  commodities,  was  to  take  bond  that  the  vessel 
carry  the  goods  to  an  English  plantation,  or  to 
England,  Ireland,  Wales,  or  Berwick  on  Tweed,  and  if 
any  load  were  taken  before  giving  bond,  the  bond 
should  be  forfeited. 

In  soon  afterwards  arranging  for  a  monopoly  for 
English  built  vessels,  Ireland's  dealings  with  the  colo- 
nies was  restricted.  By  act  of  15  Car.  II,  c.  7,  no  com- 
modity of  the  growth  or  manufacture  of  Europe  was 
to  be  imported  after  March  25,  1664,  into  any  of  the 
plantations  unless  shipped  in  England,  Wales,  or  Ber- 
wick, and  in  English  built  shipping  or  shipping  bought 
before  Oct.  1,  1662,  and  of  which  the  master  and  three 


278  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

fourths  at  least  of  the  mariners  were  English,  and  un- 
less carried  directly  to  the  plantations,  under  penalty 
of  loss  of  goods  and  of  vessel,  guns,  &ct.,  except  that 
the  wines  of  Madeira  and  the  Azores  and  servants  and 
horses  from  Scotland  or  Ireland  and  victuals  from 
Scotland  could  be  taken  in.  The  Governors  of  the  plan- 
tations were,  before  entrance  upon  their  governments, 
to  take  an  oath  to  do  their  utmost  to  have  this  act  ob- 
served. 

Scotchmen  had  evaded  the  provision  requiring  mas- 
ters of  vessels  to  be  English  by  coming  over  as  super- 
cargoes and  merchants,  although  often  they  directed  as 
if  masters ;  and  Randolph,  claiming  that  the  law  should 
be  strictly  construed  against  Scotchmen,  said  on  Dec. 
7,  1695,  that  many  Scotchmen  had  been  engaged  in 
trade,  i.e.  as  merchants,  in  America  for  many  years,  as 
being  persons  "born  within  the  King's  allegiance." 
Upon  the  incorporation  by  the  Parliament  of  Scotland 
of  the  trading  company  for  India,  Africa,  and  America, 
which  resulted  in  the  Darien  fiasco,  England  became 
alarmed,  lest  her  trade  and  navigation  except  with 
Europe  would  be  destroyed.  Her  Parliament  ad- 
dressed the  King,  particularly  representing  that  when 
the  Scotch  would  be  settled  in  plantations  in  America, 
England's  commerce  in  tobacco,  sugar,  &ct.  would  be 
utterly  lost.  The  King's  answer  favored  a  vigorous 
execution  of  the  English  laws  for  the  security  of  the 
plantation  trade,  and  for  making  England  the  staple 
of  the  commodities  of  the  plantations,  and  of  the  com- 
modities from  other  countries  and  places  for  the  sup- 
port of  the  plantations. 

On  May  15,  1696,  in  place  of  the  Committee  of  the 
Privy  Council  for  Trade  and  Plantations,  Commis- 
sioners were  appointed  "for  Promoting  the  Trade  of 
our  Kingdom  and  Inspecting  and  Improving  our  Plan- 
tations in  America  and  Elsewhere;"  and  it  was  made 
part  of  their  duty  to  promote  the  supplying  of  England 


England.  279 

with  naval  stores  from  her  colonies,  improving  and 
settling  in  them  such  other  staples  and  manufactures 
as  England  was  obliged  to  obtain  from  the  subjects  of 
other  princes  and  states,  and  to  ascertain  what  may 
be  best  encouraged  in  the  plantations,  and  "what 
trades  are  taken  up  and  exercised  there  which  may 
prove  prejudicial  by  furnishing  themselves  and  our 
other  colonies  with  what  has  been  usually  supplied 
from  England,  and  to  find  out  means  of  diverting  them 
from  such."  John  Locke,  who  largely  owed  his  life 
to  Penn,  was  one  of  these  Commissioners. 

An  act,  7  &  8  Wm.  Ill,  c.  22,  passed  for  preventing 
frauds  and  regulating  abuses  in  the  plantation  trade, 
allowed  no  goods  after  March  25,  1698,  to  be  imported 
into  or  exported  from  the  plantations,  or  from  one  part 
to  another  of  the  colonies,  or  to  England,  Wales,  or 
Berwick,  in  any  ship  or  bottom  but  of  the  build  of 
England,  Ireland,  or  the  colonies,  wholly  owned  by 
people  thereof,  and  navigated  with  master  and  three 
fourths  of  the  mariners  English.  All  the  Governors  and 
Commanders-in-Chief  of  any  of  the  English  colonies 
were  before  March  25,  1697,  and  all  afterwards  ap- 
pointed were  before  entrance  upon  the  government,  to 
take  an  oath  to  do  their  utmost  to  have  this  and  the 
preceding  acts  observed,  and  said  officers  were  to  give 
security  upon  notice.  The  jurors  in  all  actions  upon 
any  statute  concerning  the  King's  duties  or  the  forfei- 
ture of  ship  or  goods  were  to  be  natives  of  England  or 
Ireland  or  the  plantations:  and  all  places  of  trust  in 
courts  of  law  were  to  be  filled  by  native  bora  subjects 
of  England  or  Ireland  or  said  plantations.  No  persons 
claiming  propriety  in  tracts  of  land  in  America  by 
charter  or  letters  patent  were  to  sell  to  other  than 
natural  born  subjects  of  England,  Ireland,  Wales,  or 
Berwick  without  consent  of  the  King  signified  by 
order  in  Council  first  obtained.  All  Governors  ap- 
pointed by  any  of  such  proprietors  who  were  author- 


280  Chronicles  op  Pennsylvania. 

ized  to  nominate  such,  should  be  allowed  and  approved 
of  by  the  King,  and  before  entering  on  government  take 
oaths  like  Governors  of  other  colonies.  No  vessel  should 
be  deemed  qualified  to  carry  to  or  from  the  plantations, 
as  built  in  England  &ct.  or  the  plantations,  until  the 
persons  claiming  property  registered  it  by  proof  upon 
the  oath  of  one  or  more  owners  of  the  vessel. 

Those  who  wished  to  discriminate  against  Scotland 
experienced  a  defeat  when  the  Attorney-General  and 
Solicitor-General  gave  an  opinion  that  Scotchmen  were 
qualified  to  be  owners,  masters,  and  mariners  in 
America.  All  the  restrictions  upon  them  in  trade  and 
navigation  were  removed  by  the  Act  for  the  Union  of 
the  Two  Kingdoms  of  England  and  Scotland,  5 
Ann.,  c.  8. 


CHAPTER  X. 

Failure  in  Government. 

Question  as  to  resuscitation  of  Frame  of  1683 — 
Councillors  chosen  under  it — Requisition  for 
troops — Councillors  leave  defence  of  Penn's  do- 
minions to  Markham's  conscience— Assembly  offers 
250Z.  "for  the  support  of  the  government"  in 
answer  to  the  requisition,  but  demands  first  the 
confirmation  of  the  Frame  with  some  changes — 
Markham  refuses,  and  dissolves  both  Council  and 
Assembly,  and  rules  without  any  for  about  a  year — 
Deterioration  of  the  colony  in  morals — Illness  and 
complacency  of  Markham — Wide-spread  disincli- 
nation to  punish — Difficulties  of  enforcing  laws 
regulating  trade — Rapid  increase  of  population 
with  loss  to  other  colonies — Size  of  Philadelphia 
and  population  of  town  and  country  about  1697 — 
Pennsylvania  drawing  foreign  silver — A  bank — 
Linen,  woolens,  and  wine — Trade — Randolph  sug- 
gests annexation  of  Lower  Counties  to  Maryland 
and  union  of  Pennsylvania  and  West  Jersey  under 
Royal  Governor — Markham  appoints  a  Council, 
and  summons  an  Assembly  like  Fletcher's — A 
would-be  pirate  employed  for  defence,  and  pro- 
tected against  a  naval  force  sent  to  arrest  him — 
Appropriation  of  3001.  "for  the  relief  of  the  dis- 
tressed Indians,"  as  the  reply  to  the  requisition 
for  troops — Precaution  against  fire  in  Philadelphia 
and  New  Castle— The  Frame  of  1696— Taxation 
disproportionate  and  without  representation — Op- 
position to  the  Frame — Assembly  refuses  to  send 
further  money  for  the  war — Admiralty  Court  with 
Quary  as  Judge — Penn's  arguments  and  sugges- 
tions to  a  Committee  of  the  House  of  Lords — 
Instructions  from  the  King  and  requirement  to  give 


282  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

security — Markham's  correspondence  with  Capt. 
Daniell — Penn  urges  the  suppression  of  forbidden 
trade  and  vice  in  his  colony — The  licensing  of 
drinking  places  put  in  the  county  Justices'  hands — 
Penn's  plea  as  to  Markham — Pirates — Every  and 
men  from  his  vessel — Pennsylvania  Act  relating  to 
trade — Interference  with  Admiralty  and  Customs 
officers — Eeplevin — Lloyd's  insult  to  the  seal  with 
the  King's  effigy — Plunder  of  Lewes  by  Frenchmen 
— Legislation  and  other  proceedings  of  the  pro- 
vincial government — Captain  Kidd. 

The  correct  legal  opinion,  and  that  held  by  a  number 
of  persons,  was,  that  at  the  end  of  the  suspension  of 
Penn's  government,  all  the  privileges  and  institutions 
derived  from  Penn,  and  particularly  those  created  by 
the  Charter  of  1683  establishing  the  Frame  of  Govern- 
ment, sprang  again  into  full  force.  Certain  funda- 
mental legislation  amounted  to  a  covenant  between 
Penn  and  the  People,  to  destroy  which  was  to  the  in- 
terest of  neither  party.  Upon  the  laws  establishing  a 
constitution  depended  the  People's  great  share  in 
political  authority :  on  the  other  hand,  upon  the  Act  of 
Union  and  Act  of  Settlement  under  the  first  Frame,  as 
legally  replaced  by  the  Frame  of  1683,  depended  what 
was  a  great  advantage  to  Penn,  as  well  as  to  the  dual 
colony,  viz:  the  integrity  of  the  dominion  from  below 
Lewes  to  the  headwaters  of  the  Delaware.  If  that  Act 
of  Union  was  void,  while  the  Charter  from  King 
Charles  authorized  Penn  and  the  freemen  of  Pennsyl- 
vania proper  to  make  laws  for  that  Province,  there  was 
really  nothing  to  bind  any  inhabitant  of  New  Castle, 
Kent,  or  Sussex  except  the  common  law  of  England, 
and,  if  the  representatives  of  what  is  now  Delaware 
were  to  meet  to  tax  themselves,  they  could  insist  upon 
being  an  independent  House.  William  and  Mary  had 
recognized  the  vitality  of  the  old  order  of  things  in  the 
Province  of  Pennsylvania  and  Country  of  New  Castle 


Failure  in  Government.  283 

and  all  the  Territories  and  tracts  of  land  depending 
thereon;  for  the  letters  patent  saying  that  their  Majes- 
ties had  seen  fit  to  restore  Penn  to  the  administration  of 
the  government,  did  not  contain  any  words  making  a 
grant  to  him,  but  merely  a  decree  that  the  appointment 
of  Fletcher  with  his  powers  over  the  region  should 
cease.  As  part  of  the  covenant  between  Penn  and  the 
People,  he  and  the  representatives  of  both  Province  and 
Territories  had  agreed,  in  Article  24th  of  the  Frame, 
that  no  act,  law,  or  ordinance  should  thereafter  be  made 
or  done  by  the  Proprietary  and  Governor  or  freeman 
in  the  Council  or  Assembly  to  alter,  change,  or  diminish 
the  form  or  effect  of  that  Frame,  without  the  consent 
of  the  Proprietary  and  Governor  or  his  heirs  or  assigns 
and  six  sevenths  of  the  freemen  in  Council  and  As- 
sembly. Such  consent  to  alter  or  annul  had  never  been 
given:  a  transcendent  authority  had  imposed  its  will, 
but  had  since  relinquished  its  hold,  had  even  under- 
taken to  execute  such  reasonable  laws  as  were  in  force 
at  Fletcher's  taking  charge,  although  providing  means 
for  further  legislation,  and  had,  on  yielding  the  govern- 
ment again  to  Penn,  asked  his  consent  to  the  laws 
passed  meanwhile. 

Markham  in  Philadelphia  received  his  commission 
from  Penn  about  seven  months  after  William  and 
Mary's  patent  restoring  the  government,  and  took  the 
oaths  on  the  second  day  of  the  new  year,  i.e.  March  26, 
1695.  He  acted  at  once  upon  the  theory  that  the  old 
Frame  was  in  force,  issuing  in  a  few  days  writs  for  the 
election  of  Councillors  as  prescribed  in  the  Frame.  As 
the  old  succession  had  been  broken,  he  could  not  fill  the 
body,  and  preserve  the  rotation  in  office,  except  by  hav- 
ing one  Councillor  chosen  from  each  county  for  three 
years,  one  for  two  years,  and  one  for  one  year.  For 
these  terms  respectively,  Philadelphia  County  chose 
Carpenter,  Richardson,  and  Anthony  Morris,  Chester 
County  chose  David  Lloyd,  Caleb  Pusey,  and  George 


284  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Maris,  Bucks  County  chose  Joseph  Growdon,  Phineas 
Pemberton,  and  William  Biles,  New  Castle  County 
chose  John  Donnaldson,  John  Williams,  and  Richard 
Halliwell,  Kent  County  chose  John  Brinckloe,  Richard 
Willson,  and  Griffith  Jones  (apparently  not  the  person 
of  the  name  in  Fletcher's  Council),  and  Sussex  chose 
Clark,  Thomas  Pemberton,  and  Robert  Clifton.  All 
the  Pennsylvanians  and  Jones  and  Clark  were  Quakers, 
as  appears  by  their  subscribing  the  declaration  of  fidel- 
ity and  profession  of  the  Christian  faith  and  the  test, 
while  the  others  took  the  oath  required  by  Act  of 
Parliament,  and  subscribed  the  test. 

Most  persons  wanted  the  guarantee  of  privileges  and 
the  limitation  of  Penn's  powers;  but  most  of  these 
Councillors  desired  changes  in  the  Frame.  The  first 
business  of  the  Council,  except  some  judicial  and  ad- 
ministrative matters,  was  to  go  over  the  laws,  so  as  to 
propose  such  alterations  and  additions  as  were  to  be 
submitted  at  the  meeting  of  the  Assembly.  On  May  25, 
the  grand  committee,  into  which  the  Council  had  been 
resolved  for  the  aforesaid  purpose,  presented  to  Mark- 
ham  a  bill  for  remodelling  the  government;  but,  after 
several  days  spent  upon  it,  an  agreement  could  not  be 
reached,  and  the  subject  was  dropped. 

Fletcher  had  written,  on  April  15,  for  the  full  quota 
of  80  men  with  their  officers,  which  he  stated  to  be  a 
captain,  two  lieutenants,  four  sergeants,  four  corporals, 
and  two  drummers,  to  be  at  Albany  as  soon  as  possible, 
and  for  their  arms,  ammunition,  and  pay  for  one  year 
to  be  provided  also.  The  Council  advised  that  an  As- 
sembly be  called,  but  postponed  its  meeting  until  the 
9th  of  September,  declaring  that  it  would  be  the  ruin 
of  many  families  for  the  men  to  be  away  from  home 
during  harvest.  Markham,  expressing  the  hope  that 
the  delay  would  not  be  looked  upon  as  a  refusal,  men- 
tioned Penn's  assurances  to  protect  the  country  as  far 
as  in  him  lay,  and  asked,  if  an  enemy  made  any  attempt 


Failure  in  Government.  285 

upon  it,  were  the  Councillors  willing  that  the  Governor 
should  defend  it  by  force  of  arms?  Some  said  that 
they  were  willing;  others,  that  they  must  leave  every 
one  to  his  liberty;  some  admitted  that  Governor  Penn's 
instructions  were  to  be  followed;  finally  various 
Quakers  declared  that  it  was  the  Governor's  business, 
and  they  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  Carpenter  being 
probably  among  those  unwilling  to  meddle,  Markham 
asked  John  Goodson,  the  other  Assistant,  whether  he 
was  dissatisfied  with  anything  that  had  been  done ;  he 
expressed  himself  satisfied. 

Fletcher,  making  a  change  in  the  number  of  ser- 
geants and  corporals  from  four  to  three,  asked,  on  June 
32,  that  the  troops  or  money  to  maintain  them  be  sent 
to  New  York  by  the  1st  of  August.  The  Councillors  to 
whom  this  second  letter  was  read,  whether  Quaker  or 
not,  still  saw  no  use  in  drawing  the  representatives  of 
the  People  away  from  harvesting,  as  not  until  Winter 
would  the  crops  be  paid  for,  and  the  inhabitants  have 
any  money  to  pay  a  tax. 

The  Sheriffs  were  commanded  to  hold  elections  for 
six  Assemblymen  from  each  county,  the  number  men- 
tioned in  the  Frame.  The  Assemblymen  chosen,  of 
whom  Shippen  was  made  Speaker,  were  all  Quakers  ex- 
cept four  of  those  from  Sussex. 

The  Council  having  failed  to  promulgate  bills  twenty 
days  before  the  meeting  of  the  Assembly,  no  legisla- 
tion was  possible  consistently  with  the  Frame.  This 
may  have  made  the  leaders  of  the  People  more  deter- 
mined to  get  rid  of  the  Frame:  and  there  was  a  pur- 
pose to  obtain  greater  concessions  in  a  new  Charter. 
Somebody,  perhaps  Lloyd,  suggesting  that  the  old  was 
void,  the  opportunity  seemed  to  have  arrived.  A  third 
request  for  the  quota  of  troops  or  money  followed  a 
meeting  of  Fletcher  with  some  of  the  Mohawks,  and 
was  laid  before  the  Assembly.  A  resolution  was  car- 
ried that  legislation  might  be  proceeded  with,  in  the 


286  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

present  emergency,  without  the  previous  promulgation 
of  bills.  A  committee  of  Councillors  and  Assemblymen 
made  a  report,  in  which  was  set  forth  the  present  made 
in  1693  to  the  King  and  Queen  for  support  of  govern- 
ment, upon  Fletcher's  assurance  of  supplying  the 
friendly  Indians  with  necessaries,  and  there  was  ex- 
pressed the  opinion  that  the  money  then  raised  or  now 
to  be  raised  ' '  for  the  support  of  government, ' '  and  not 
otherwise  expressly  appropriated,  ought  to  be  taken 
instead  of  the  assistance  asked,  and  as  an  answer,  as 
far  as  conscience  and  ability  allowed,  to  the  Queen's 
letters,  and  that  the  said  money  might  be  appropriated 
as  the  Governor  or  his  Deputy  for  the  time  being  should 
see  fit.  Markham,  welcoming  any  chance  for  a  substan- 
tial aid,  desired  the  representatives  to  go  on  as  they 
had  begun,  and  give  an  effectual  answer  by  raising 
money.  The  Committee  also  made  a  report  as  to  an 
Act  of  Settlement.  There  was  a  unanimous  vote  of  the 
House  that  the  old  Frame  was  dead;  certain  altera- 
tions were  decided  upon  to  be  embraced  in  a  new  law 
reviving  it,  to  be  passed  by  the  Proprietary's  Deputy 
with  the  consent  of  the  freemen  in  an  Assembly.  An 
Act  of  Settlement,  following  the  adoption  by  the  House 
of  that  report,  was  presented  along  with  a  bill  levying 
Id.  per  I.  and  6s.  per  head  on  persons  not  otherwise 
rated,  250/.  of  the  proceeds  to  be  for  the  support  of  the 
government  as  before  mentioned,  300/.  to  go  to  Mark- 
ham  for  his  services,  and  the  balance  to  pay  the  debts 
of  the  government.  Markham  offered  to  pass  the 
money  bill  to  answer  the  Queen's  letter  in  any  manner, 
or  under  any  " title,"  meaning  the  phraseology  to 
avoid  ostensibly  appropriating  for  war,  and  desired 
his  own  name  to  be  entirely  omitted  from  the  bill, 
rather  than  that  the  Queen's  letter  remain  unanswered. 
He  wished  the  Act  of  Settlement  left  for  further  debate, 
and  refused  to  pass  any  bill  before  the  money  bill.  One 
Councillor  pointed  out  that   Parliament  always  had 


Failure  in  Government.  287 

their  privileges  granted  first,  and  voted  the  money  last. 
Several  members  said  that  there  was  nothing  in  the 
Act  of  Settlement  but  what  the  Proprietary  had 
formerly  granted.  Markham  reflected  that,  if  the 
Frame  binding  Penn  and  his  heirs,  and  curtailing  their 
powers,  was  indeed  dead,  as  asserted  by  the  very  bene- 
ficiaries of  it,  the  Deputy  would  be  unfaithful  to  his 
principal  in  binding  him  again.  Markham  accordingly 
declared  that  he  could  not,  in  honor  or  justice  to  the 
Proprietary,  pass  the  Act  of  Settlement.  As  for  the 
People's  privileges,  he  never  had  attempted,  or  would 
attempt,  to  diminish  them.  Despairing  of  any  answer 
to  the  demands  of  the  Governor  of  New  York,  unless  a 
Charter  of  Privileges  were  granted,  Markham  dis- 
solved both  Council  and  Assembly.  If  he  was  Deputy 
of  a  Governor  bound  only  by  the  Charter  from  King 
Charles  or  the  usual  customs  of  the  British  colonies, 
this  action  was  perfectly  valid.  Apparently  Markham 
had  the  consent  of  his  Assistants,  one  or  both  of  whom 
refused  to  agree  to  his  calling  an  Assembly  in  the  way 
it  was  done  in  other  colonies.  With,  the  Assistants' 
consent,  he  administered  the  government  without 
Council  or  Assembly  for  a  year  all  but  two  days,  writ- 
ing to  Penn  for  a  solution  of  the  dilemma,  but  the  let- 
ters being  captured  by  the  French.  , 

The  English  provinces  of  North  America,  at  least 
some  of  them,  were  not  at  this  period  filled  with  God- 
fearing or  law-abiding  people.  Nicholson,  when  he 
complained  of  the  loose  government  of  Pennsylvania, 
drew  a  sad  picture  of  the  low  state  of  religion  and 
morality  in  Maryland,  his  own  province,  where  there 
were  men  with  two  wives,  and  women  witii  two  hus- 
bands. Pennsylvania  might  have  been  expected  to  be 
a  bright  spot,  from  the  character  of  Penn's  first  set- 
tlers, most  of  whom  were  still  living,  but  the  Keithian 
movement,  overturning,  like  all  reforms,  something 
beneficial  in  the  old  order  of  things,  had  destroyed  the 


288  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

influence  of  those  who  might  have  kept  the  public,  even 
with  increasing  additions  of  non-Quakers,  to  a  high 
moral  sentiment.  Having  no  regard  for  such  monitors, 
the  many  persons  who  for  other  than  religious  reasons 
had  come  to  the  western  shore  of  Delaware  Bay  and 
River  were  on  the  average  no  better  behaved  than  those 
who  were  residing  elsewhere  away  from  home.  More- 
over, black  sheep  in  the  diminished  Quaker  flock  were 
visible,  and  it  was  even  alleged  that  its  ministry  fur- 
nished enough  cases  of  immorality  to  seem  to  be  no 
more  like  angels  than  the  clergy  of  other  bodies  have 
shown  themselves  to  be. 

While  examples  and  ideals  were  becoming  insufficient 
in  many  cases  to  restrain  conduct,  the  government  was 
ceasing  to  be  a  terror  to  evil  doers.  Markham  was  in 
failing  health,  Randolph  calling  him  "very  infirm." 
Penn  writing  on  3mo.  7,  1700,  pleaded  this  as  an  ex- 
cuse for  "slips,"  Markham  "having  been  so  rudely 
handled  with  gout,  he  has  not  the  use  of  his  legs,  and 
but  little  of  his  hands,  he  can  not  even  ride,  and  is 
prisoner  to  his  own  chamber."  Uncertain  as  to  what 
Charter  he  was  acting  under,  in  trepidation  at  the 
Assembly's  non-compliance  with  the  royal  order  for 
troops,  without  any  fund  at  his  disposal,  or  guards  at 
his  command,  and  depending  on  the  rough  characters 
to  do  the  fighting  which  might  be  required  for  the  do- 
minion, and  naturally  politic  and  easy-going,  Markham 
was  not  energetic  in  correcting  irregularities.  It  is 
even  noticeable,  that,  although  the  Act  of  Navigation 
gave  to  the  Governor  of  the  plantation — in  this  case 
Markham  or  Penn — one  third  of  any  vessel  or  goods 
seized  there,  Markham  showed  no  avidity  in  making 
seizures.  In  fact,  while  Penn  in  England  was  sancti- 
monious, Markham  adopted  the  policy  for  making 
Penn's  dominion  prosperous  of  having  a  "wide  open" 
town.  No  ordinary  or  drinking  place  being  allowed 
without  the   Governor's   license,   Markham   seems   to 


Failure  in  Government.  289 

have  granted  licenses  to  all  who  would  pay  to  him  the 
fee   for   the    same.     Randolph,    Surveyor-General   of 
Customs,  repeated  stories  of  Markham  receiving  large 
sums  from  illegal  traders  and  pirates,  whom  he  allowed 
to  reside  unmolested.     Against  such  complaints  and 
Penn's  insinuations  covered  by  the  word  " avarice," 
Markham,  in  the  course  of  two  letters  in  the  Spring  of 
1697,  said:  "I  have  been  a  slave  to  this  Province  many 
years  and  never  saw  a  penny  of  their  money.     .     .    I 
have  had  as  many  opportunities  since  I  have  been  here 
to  have  bettered  my  fortune  as  those  that  have  made 
use  of  them,  but  I  have  always  been  governed  by  such 
principles  whether  out  of  religion  or  honor  I  will  not 
say  that  I  fear  will  always  subject  me  to  the  character 
[of  being  impecunious]    Randolph  gives  of  me.     In 
short  I  have  served  you  faithfully  but  desire  not  to  be 
a  burden.    I  have  trusted  Providence  hitherto  and  tho ' 
it  may  be  hard  with  me  being  a,  cripple,  yet  can  not  beg 
an  alms  tho'  at  the  door  of  those  I  spent  my  strength 
for. ' '    A  few  years  later,  Penn,  in  a  letter  referring  to 
Markham  having  set  apart  a  certain  lot  for  a  meeting- 
house for  the  Friends,  spoke  of  him  as  having  lived 
"corruptly  and  lavishly"  upon  him:  but  the  angry 
language  may  have  been  too  strong.    If,  to  be  sure,  this 
complaisant  Governor  did  not  take  as  much  blackmail 
or  presents  in  the  nature  of  blackmail  as  some  Gover- 
nors of  other  colonies,  he  by  that  very  circumstance 
added  to  the  attractiveness  of  Pennsylvania  and  the 
Lower  Counties  for  bad  characters. 

Although  the  Quakers  in  their  Address  to  King 
William  of  3mo.,  1696,  spoken  of  in  the  chapter  on  Re- 
ligious Dissension,  attributed  misrepresentations  of 
them  to  revenge  for  their  magistrates'  strictness 
against  disorders  and  night  revels,  there  was,  contem- 
porary with  the  coming  of  men  of  bad  character  among 
the  non-Quaker  residents  or  sojourners,  a  dislike  widely 
spread  among  the  religious  people  of  the  use  of  any- 

19 


290  Chronicles  oe  Pennsylvania. 

thing  but  moral  suasion  to  control  a  fellow  man's  con- 
duct. This  was  independent  of  any  worldly  motives. 
Not  only  were  the  Mennonites  principled  against  co- 
ercion by  force,  and  the  Keithians  had  reproached  their 
enemies  with  readiness  to  fight  to  enforce  the  law,  but 
many  who  thought  about  human  rights  justified  unkind- 
ness  to  anybody  only  when  necessary  to  protect  others 
in  life,  freedom,  and  lawful  property.  Retribution,  as 
an  object  apart  from  prevention,  seemed  to  them  not 
man's  affair.  The  disinclination  to  punish  naturally 
increased  with  the  severity  of  the  punishment,  and,  as 
well  as  legal  obstructions,  left  grave  offences  unatoned 
for.  Except  the  persons  benefitted  by  fines  or  forfei- 
tures, and  not  even  Markham  or  Penn  among  such,  few 
wished  to  see  any  man  suffer  very  much  in  person  or 
estate  for  a  breach  of  the  laws  giving  England  a  mo- 
nopoly of  trade.  Although  this  remark  seems  to  be  at 
variance  with  the  Vindication  sent  by  the  Council  and 
Assembly  to  King  William  in  1698,  two  years  later  than 
the  Address  already  spoken  of,  and  although  the  word 
of  those  who  signed  may  be  worth  more  than  the  word 
of  Edward  Randolph,  yet  in  this  matter  the  Vindica- 
tion need  be  taken  as  proving  only  that  the  leading  men 
were  neither  conspiring  nor  wishing  to  foster  pro- 
hibited trade. 

Along  such  a  water  frontage,  where  vessels  could 
escape  observation  in  a  wide  bay  and  in  creeks,  in  days 
when  a  deep  channel  was  not  required,  no  Governor 
except  with  numerous  revenue  cutters  could  prevent 
smuggling.  Goods  could  be  landed,  and,  while  kept 
away  from  New  Castle,  Chester,  and  Philadelphia, 
could  be  disposed  of  among  the  country  people,  and 
in  some  cases  carried  over  to  Maryland.  Similarly, 
even  tobacco  could  be  put  on  board  by  stealth.  One 
vessel  said  to  have  been  owned  by  a  Netherlander  did 
its  work  by  night.  As  required  by  the  law  to  prevent 
exporting  except  to  England,  the  acting  Governor  duly 


Failure  in  Government.  291 

exacted  bonds  with  sureties  for  proceeding  thither 
from  the  masters  of  vessels  leaving  Penn's  dominions. 
When  on  the  high  seas,  a  master  would  sometimes 
change  the  course,  and  carry  his  cargo  to  Scotland  or 
the  Netherlands.  Hearing  of  vessels  which  had  not 
reached  their  ostensible  destination,  Markham  did  not 
sue  out  the  bonds,  and  when  Randolph  expostulated 
with  him,  gave  Randolph  no  satisfaction.  Nearly  every 
case  in  the  list  made  out  by  Randolph  is  explained  in 
the  Vindication  aforesaid,  the  vessel  as  a  rule  being 
captured  by  the  French:  but  in  March,  1696-7,  Penn 
was  obliged  to  raise  the  point  before  the  Committee  of 
the  House  of  Lords  that  Proprietary  officers  could  not 
be  expected  to  sue  out  the  bonds,  in  which  contention 
he  was  unsuccessful. 

While  Markham  and  the  Deputies  of  Proprietary 
Governors  generally  co-operated  less  with  the  Customs 
officials  than  did  Governors  directly  under  the  Crown, 
judges  and  juries  outside  of  Penn's  dominion  were  ap- 
parently as  unwilling  as  those  within  it  to  enforce  the 
Trade  and  Navigation  Laws,  and  perhaps  were  less 
disinterested  in  their  motives.  By  December,  1695, 
when  Randolph  made  the  statement,  he  had  never 
gained  a  case  in  the  courts  of  any  colony  against  any 
vessel.  He  may  have  brought  his  suits  without  suffi- 
cient evidence,  but,  as  the  judges  in  America  were  often 
merchants,  the  unvarying  acquittal  looks  more  like  par- 
tiality or  affiliation,  and  led  to  the  belief  that  justice 
to  the  King's  side  in  such  tribunals  was  not  obtainable. 
In  the  case  of  the  ship  "Dolphin,"  Randolph  asked 
Markham  for  a  special  court  at  Philadelphia,  but  the 
trial  was  ordered  to  be  at  Chester,  and,  on  April  30, 
1695,  there  was  a  verdict  for  defendant  with  damages 
and  costs,  and  Randolph  was  arrested  and  imprisoned 
for  £46,  and,  although  an  appeal  was  allowed,  the  ship 
was  not  detained. 

The  population  along  the  western  side  of  Delaware 


292  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Bay  and  River  increased  rapidly  during  the  fifteen 
years  following  the  grant  to  Penn.  To  the  causes  men- 
tioned in  the  chapter  on  the  People,  there  were  added 
towards  the  close  of  the  Century,  to  attract  from  other 
colonies,  greater  employment  for  labor  and  gentler 
exercise  of  authority.  Better  wages  and,  according  to 
Governor  Nicholson,  the  chance  of  booty  offered  by 
piratical  captains,  induced  such  desertion  of  sailors  to 
Pennsylvania  that  the  vessels  in  Maryland  could  not 
be  manned.  He,  in  June,  1695,  did  not  doubt  that  one 
hundred  had  run  to  Pennsylvania  from  the  Virginia 
and  Maryland  fleet.  There  was  another  cause  for  emi- 
gration from  Maryland;  in  that  colony,  people  were 
caned  and  clubbed.  As  to  New  York,  the  burdens  of 
the  war  with  Canada  were  mentioned  in  September, 
1696,  as  having  induced  two  hundred  or  three  hundred 
families  to  leave,  some  going  to  New  England,  but  most 
to  Maryland  or  Pennsylvania.  Philadelphia  became 
nearly  as  large  and  possessed  of  nearly  as  much  trade 
and  riches  as  the  city  of  New  York,  which  was  much 
older.  Penn  told  the  Commissioners  for  Trade  in  1697 
that  he  thought  it  possible  that  Philadelphia  comprised 
1500  houses,  and  that  the  inhabitants  of  town  and 
country  together  numbered  12,000. 

Pennsylvania  had  bid  for  actual  money  by  passing  a 
law  in  1693,  with  the  consent  of  Fletcher,  that  all  Peru 
pieces  of  eight  weighing  not  less  than  12  dwt.  and  all 
Lion  dollars  (coined  in  the  Netherlands)  not  clipped 
should  pass  for  6s.,  and  all  pillar,  Mexico,  and  Seville 
pieces  of  eight  should  pass,  if  weighing  13  dwt.,  for 
6s.  2d.,  and,  if  weighing  14  dwt.,  for  6s.  4  d.,  and,  if 
weighing  15  dwt.,  for  6s.  6d.,  and,  if  weighing  16  dwt., 
for  6s.  9d.  and,  if  weighing  17  dwt.,  for  75.  This  had 
operated  to  draw  both  silver  and  trade  to  the  Dela- 
ware: Hartwell  and  other  Virginians  complained  on 
Oct.  20,  1697,  that,  by  appointing  the  piece  of  eight 
weighing  12  dwt.  to  go  for  6s.,  Pennsylvania  was  drain- 


Failure  in  Government.  293 

ing  all  the  money  from  Maryland  and  Virginia,  the  best 
piece  of  eight  being  in  Virginia  5s.,  and  in  Maryland 
4s.  6d. 

Nicholson,  in  a  letter  of  June  14,  1695,  to  the  Duke 
of  Shrewsbury,  said  that  there  was  a  bank  in  Penn's 
dominion  of  £20,000,  most  of  the  people,  even  the 
tradesmen  and  farmers,  being  concerned  in  it,  the 
farmers  putting  in  their  grain.  On  this  subject,  noth- 
ing further  has  been  found  except  that  on  12mo.  7, 
1688-9,  Robert  Turner,  John  Tessick  (Tysack?), 
Thomas  Budd,  Robert  Ewer,  Samuel  Carpenter,  and 
John  Fuller,  by  petition  to  Governor  Blackwell  and 
Council,  set  forth  said  petitioners'  design  to  start  a 
bank  for  money,  and  asked  to  be  encouraged,  where- 
upon Blackwell  told  them  that  he  himself  had,  when  in 
New  England,  proposed  such  a  thing  to  Penn,  and  the 
latter 's  answer  might  be  expected  by  the  first  ship  from 
England.  Nevertheless,  Blackwell  explained  that  he 
saw  no  reason  why  they  should  not  give  their  personal 
bills,  as  merchants  usually  did  bills  of  exchange,  to  any- 
body who  would  take  such  bills  to  pass  as  money.  He 
warned  as  to  the  danger  of  counterfeiting.  If  Nichol- 
son, who  had  only  recently  arrived  in  the  adjoining 
province,  was  correctly  informed,  there  was  thus  an 
association  distinct  from  the  Society  of  Traders,  and 
apparently  unchartered,  warehousing  and  marketing 
much  of  the  agricultural  product. 

Nicholson  also  mentioned  the  Germans  in  Pennsyl- 
vania employed  in  linen  and  woolen  manufacture,  and 
that  more  were  expected,  "which,"  he  added  with  true 
English  feeling,  "will  be  very  prejudicial  to  England." 
Two  years  later,  Penn,  before  the  Committee  of  the 
House  of  Lords,  spoke  of  the  possibility  of  America 
furnishing  wine  for  England,  saying  that  in  Pennsyl- 
vania both  Germans  and  French  were  then  making 
white  and  red  wine  every  year. 

The  other  colonies,  and  particularly  Maryland,  were 


294  Cheonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

jealous  of  Penn's,  and  jealousy  fostered  suspicion  that 
the  commerce  of  the  latter  was  illegal.  Nicholson  heard 
and,  in  the  aforesaid  letter,  communicated  the  gossip 
that  Penn's  colony,  having  many  Scotchmen  engaged 
in  trade,  was  sending  tobacco  to  Scotland  and  other  un- 
lawful European  destinations,  also  to  Curacoa  and 
Surinam,  in  casks  with  only  flour  and  bread  visible  at 
the  ends.  The  story  continued  that  the  vessels  con- 
trived to  reach  Curagoa  and  Surinam  in  time  for  the 
arrival  of  the  Dutch  fleet  from  Europe,  so  as  to  buy 
goods  from  it,  which  were  then  brought  back  and  sold 
in  Pennsylvania  as  cheap  as  in  Holland.  Nicholson 
said  further  that  twelve  or  fourteen  sloops,  brigantines, 
and  other  vessels  were  then  being  built  in  Pennsylvania, 
i.e.  Penn's  whole  dominion.  After  much  suspicion  had 
been  cast  upon  the  trade  to  Curagoa,  a  Dutch  posses- 
sion, Francis  Jones,  a  sea  captain,  in  his  letter  herein- 
after mentioned,  explained  that  as  it  was  not  to  the 
interest  of  merchants  to  bring  Dutch  goods  to  the  dual 
colony,  but  that  provisions,  a  legitimate  export,  were 
sent  to  Curagoa,  payment  was  made  in  Spanish  pieces 
of  eight,  otherwise  dollars,  at  4s.  to  4^5.  per  piece,  and 
these  were  used  to  buy  salt  to  bring  back.  As  to  a 
charge  of  shipping  tobacco  to  forbidden  places,  Jones 
did  not  believe  1000  hhds.  were  grown  in  Penn's  do- 
minion, the  inhabitants  chiefly  growing  corn.  Mary- 
land discriminated  in  1695  against  Pennsylvania  by 
laying  an  impost  for  three  years  of  ten  per  cent,  on  all 
European  goods  imported  thither  through  Maryland 
ports  and  across  country,  although  not  exposed  to  sale 
on  the  way;  yet  Maryland,  without  paying  a  similar 
impost  in  Pennsylvania,  got  most  of  her  European 
goods  through  its  ports.  Goods  for  New  York  and  Vir- 
ginia were  allowed  to  pass  through  Maryland  free. 

Randolph,  being  in  England  in  the  latter  part  of 
]695,  laid  before  the  Commissioners  of  Customs  an  ac- 
count of  the  state  of  the  North  American  colonies  with 


Failure  in  Government.  295 

reference  to  the  Scotch  act  incorporating  an  East  India 
Company,  and  also  some  suggestions  for  preventing 
illegal  traffic  between  the  tobacco  plantations  and 
Scotland.  He  spoke  of  a  possible  design  of  the  newly 
incorporated  Scotch  East  India  Company  to  purchase 
a  settlement  in  one  of  the  Lower  Counties  on  the  Dela- 
ware, and  suggested  the  annexation  of  those  Counties 
to  Maryland,  and  also  of  West  Jersey  to  Pennsylvania 
under  a  Governor  to  be  appointed,  more  active  than 
Markham.  The  act  of  7  &  8  Wm.  Ill,  c.  22,  aimed  at 
the  dangers  spoken  of  by  Eandolph,  has  been  men- 
tioned in  the  chapter  of  this  book  just  preceding.  Ran- 
dolph represented  that  in  Proprietary  colonies,  there 
was  every  encouragement  for  illegal  trading,  and  vari- 
ous persons  in  office  were  Scotchmen,  and  naturally 
inclined  towards  their  countrymen.  He  said  that  in 
Pennsylvania  several  well  known  pirates  were  engaged 
in  trading,  chiefly  with  Curagoa,  and  that  nine  vessels 
had  lately  sailed  directly  for  Scotland.  He  urged  that 
the  Crown  establish  a  court  in  the  colonies  for  cases 
concerning  the  revenue  and  trade. 

Benjamin  M.  Nead,  in  his  excellent  Historical  Notes 
published  by  the  State  as  an  Appendix  to  the  Duke  of 
Yorke's  Book  of  Laivs,  speaks  of  the  dissatisfaction 
of  the  representatives  of  the  People  with  Markham 's 
dissolution  of  the  two  legislative  houses,  Council  and 
Assembly,  in  1695,  and  with  his  not  issuing  writs  in 
1696  for  elections  to  be  held  at  the  time  fixed  by  the 
old  Frame,  and  also  says  that  Markham  dissuaded  the 
freemen,  who  were  planning  to  hold  elections. 

A  circular  from  the  English  government  for  the 
vigorous  enforcement,  really  against  the  Scotch,  of  the 
laws  of  Trade  and  Navigation,  and  a  copy  of  a  letter 
from  the  Committee  for  Trade  and  Plantations  for  the 
publishing  and  carrying  out  of  the  Act  of  7  &  8  Wm. 
Ill,  c.  22,  and  a  letter  from  the  said  Committee,  dated 
April  20,  requiring  the  inhabitants  to  put  themselves 


296  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

in  a  posture  of  defence  against  the  French,  convinced 
Markham  that  circumstances  required  an  organized 
government.  Therefore,  like  the  Governors  of  other 
colonies,  he  established  a  Council  appointed  by  himself, 
admitting  thereto  on  Sep.  25,  1696,  Shippen,  Morris, 
David  Lloyd — said  three  being  Quakers — and  Yeates, 
Halliwell,  Brinckloe,  John  Hill,  and  Robinson — said 
five  taking  oaths.  On  the  28th,  Markham  again  took 
the  oaths,  and  subscribed  the  test :  he  thought  it  neces- 
sary to  do  so,  because  there  had  been  ' '  some  alteration 
in  the  frame  of  government."  He  asked  the  Council- 
lors to  administer  the  oaths  to  him,  but  some  of  them 
answered  that,  being  unable  to  take  an  oath,  they  could 
not  administer  one,  and  so  Patrick  Robinson  admin- 
istered the  oaths.  By  unanimous  advice,  Markham 
summoned  an  Assembly,  issuing  writs  for  the  same 
number  of  representatives  as  under  Fletcher's  rule. 

About  this  time,  a  French  privateer  took  several  ves- 
sels out  of  New  York  harbor,  and  a  sloop  belonging 
to  Philadelphia  with  a  valuable  cargo  off  Barnegat; 
then  the  privateer  came  into  Delaware  Bay,  sending 
part  of  the  force  to  plunder  on  shore.  A  brigantine 
commanded  by  John  Day  came  to  New  Castle  under 
clearance  papers  from  South  Carolina  for  England, 
with  a  crew  so  large  that  he  was  supposed  to  be  intend- 
ing a  piratical  expedition.  Markham  hesitated  to  avail 
himself  of  the  authority  and  opportunities  to  arrest 
him :  there  was  no  force,  even  if  there  was  any  pretext, 
to  restrain  Day's  men,  who  might  therefore,  if  they  lost 
their  commander,  plunder  the  land,  or  themselves  take 
the  vessel  on  a  piratical  cruise.  There  was  some  mili- 
tary organization  for  volunteer  defenders  of  the 
dominion.  John  Donnaldson,  the  Councillor,  as  Major, 
had  been  put  in  charge  at  New  Castle,  where  there  was 
a  fort  with  seven  guns.  Pemberton,  doubtless  the 
Thomas  Pemberton  who  had  been  a  Councillor,  was 
Captain  of  the  Lower  Precincts  by  Markham 's  appoint- 


Failure  in  Government.  297 

ment.  Markham  is  called  " Colonel"  from  Fletcher's 
time.  Day  offering  to  sail  down,  and  to  fight  the  priva- 
teer without  any  expense  to  the  government,  merely  for 
the  chance  of  getting  such  a  prize,  Quary  advised 
Markham  to  commission  Day,  and  to  give  him  30  or  40 
men  from  the  Lower  Counties,  and  let  him  ambuscade 
such  French  as  had  landed.  Markham  gave  Day  the 
commission,  and  he  got  ready.  Francis  Jones,  before 
mentioned,  some  of  whose  men  had  deserted  to  Day, 
could  not  induce  Markham  to  attempt  to  recall  him. 
So,  in  great  anger,  Jones  appealed  to  Governor  Nichol- 
son in  Maryland,  where  there  was  a  fleet  under  Captain 
Wager.  Two  lieutenants  of  Capt.  Daniell's  ship  with 
about  sixty  men,  landing  at  French  Town  on  Elk  River, 
marched  over  to  New  Castle  without  asking  Markham 's 
leave,  and  there  seized  Day  and  most  of  his  officers  on 
shore,  but  were  confronted  on  the  vessel  with  Mark- 
ham's  commission.  The  lieutenants  could  not  refuse 
to  recognize  the  military  authority  of  Donnaldson,  who 
told  them  that  he  would  have  prevented  their  entering 
the  town  as  they  did,  if  he  had  known  that  they  were 
coming.  They,  finding  that  their  followers  were  get- 
ting drunk,  made  these  deliver  their  arms  into  Don- 
naldson's  custody  for  the  rest  of  the  stay.  Donnaldson 
protected  the  brigantine  with  the  guns  of  the  fort,  the 
sails  moreover  being  in  the  fort.  When,  without  a  drop 
of  blood  having  been  shed,  the  invading  force  started 
home,  several  of  the  men  did  not  appear.  To  the  great 
annoyance  of  Capt.  Daniell,  these  deserters  were  not 
found  and  surrendered  to  him.  Day,  who  was  indeed 
a  rascal,  was  allowed  to  proceed  on  his  voyage.  The 
French  privateer  appears  to  have  put  to  sea,  and  to 
have  escaped  him.  Day  went  to  Curacoa,  and  there  sold 
the  brigantine,  and  disappeared,  for  a  time  at  least,  to 
the  defrauding  of  the  owners. 

On  October  26,  1696,  the  day  appointed  for  the  meet- 
ing of  the  Assembly,  Donnaldson  and  Clark  were  ad- 


298  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

mitted  to  Markham 's  Council,  and  Goodson  retired  from 
the  office  of  Assistant.  It  was  then  learned  by  Markham 
that  Arthur  Cooke  had  had  in  his  possession  for  about 
eighteen  months,  and  had  been  forbearing  to  use,  two 
commissions  from  Penn,  one  appointing  Markham  as 
Lieutenant-Governor  to  act  acording  to  the  laws  and 
Charter,  viz :  the  Frame  of  1683,  and  the  other  appoint- 
ing Cooke  and  Jennings  as  Assistants.  Cooke  there- 
fore took  Goodson 's  place.  Markham  still  did  not  feel 
free  to  reenact  the  Frame,  if  that  was  necessary  to  its 
validity.  The  Assembly  met,  and  elected  John  Sim- 
cock  as  Speaker.  Then  Markham  presented  the  last 
message  for  the  quota,  and  said,  that,  while  he  had  re- 
ceived no  authority  to  reenact  the  Frame,  and  had  called 
the  House  under  the  Charter  of  Charles  II  and  the 
usages  of  neighbouring  Provinces,  he  would  agree  that 
nothing  done  at  the  session  should  prejudice  any  claim 
or  right  to  the  Frame.  It  was  finally  arranged  by  a 
committee  of  conference  that  a  money  bill  be  passed, 
and  also  an  act  for  a  Frame  of  Government  with  a 
proviso  that,  if  the  Proprietary  disapproved,  it  should 
be  null  and  void,  without  prejudice  to  him  or  the  People 
in  relation  to  the  validity  or  invalidity  of  the  old 
Frame,  and  that  Councillors  and  members  of  Assembly 
meanwhile  be  chosen  on  the  10th  of  the  following  1st 
month  (March).  Markham  himself  presented  the 
heads  of  the  new  Frame,  somewhat  altering  the  old. 
As  finally  agreed  upon,  the  new  Frame  was  passed  on 
November  7,  1696,  with  the  seal  of  the  Province  affixed, 
as  the  first  of  five  laws  made  at  the  session.  By  the 
second  law,  a  tax  of  Id.  per  1.  and  6s.  per  head  was 
levied  to  manifest  affection  to  the  King  as  well  as 
"  readiness  to  answer  his  expectations  in  supporting 
the  said  government  as  far  as  in  conscience  we  can : ' ' 
3001.  of  the  proceeds  to  go  towards  the  relief  of  the 
distressed  Indians  above  Albany  in  alliance  with  the 
Crown,  late  sufferers  from  the  French;  300/.  to  Gov- 


Failure  in  Government.  299 

ernor  William  Markham  for  his  services;  and  the  net 
balance  to  paying,  under  the  order  of  the  Governor  and 
Council,  the  debts  and  necessary  charges  of  the  govern- 
ment, the  Council  accounting  to  the  Assembly.  In  ad- 
vance of  the  collecting  of  this  tax,  300£.  were  borrowed 
at  interest,  perhaps  from  the  aforesaid  bank,  and  sent 
to  Fletcher,  who  reported  that  the  same  had  been  ex- 
pended in  contingencies  to  feed  and  clothe  the  Indians. 

One  of  the  laws  of  this  session  was  for  the  safety  of 
Philadelphia  and  New  Castle  from  fire:  no  one  was 
allowed  to  clean  a  chimney  by  burning  it  out,  or  to 
leave  it  so  dirty  that  it  would  flame  at  the  top;  every 
owner  of  a  dwelling  was  to  keep  therein  a  swab  twelve 
or  fourteen  feet  long  and  a  bucket  or  pail  always  ready ; 
and  no  person  was  to  smoke  tobacco  in  the  streets  day 
or  night,  and  out  of  the  twelve  pence  fine  for  doing  so, 
one  penny  was  to  be  employed  in  providing  ''leather 
buckets  &  other  instruments  or  engines  agt.  fire"  for 
the  use  of  the  town.  Apparently  the  fine  was  not  ex- 
pected to  be  absolutely  prohibitive. 

The  Frame  of  1696  did  not  arrange,  like  that  of  1683, 
for  the  exercise  of  the  appointing  power  after  William 
Penn's  death.  Besides  the  limitation  of  offices  and 
legislative  seats  to  those  of  Trinitarian  faith,  as  men- 
tioned in  the  chapter  on  Religious  Dissension,  the  other 
important  changes  were:  the  reduction  of  the  number 
of  Councillors  to  two  from  each  county  and  of  their 
term  of  office  to  one  year,  and  the  reduction  of  the 
number  of  Assemblymen  to  four  from  each  county,  and 
the  permission  for  the  Assembly,  as  well  as  the  Coun- 
cil, to  originate  laws,  and  the  allowance  as  wages  of 
5s.  for  each  day's  attendance  to  the  Councillors  and  the 
Speaker  of  the  House,  and  of  4s.  per  day  to  the  As- 
semblymen, and  of  2d.  per  mile  for  travelling  to  and 
fro  to  Councillors  and  assemblymen,  and,  finally,  the 
limitation  of  the  franchise  of  electing  or  being  elected 
Councillor  or  Assemblyman  to  such  inhabitants  only  as 


300  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

were  free  denizens  resident  for  two  years  before  the 
election,  aged  twenty-one  years  or  more,  and  possess- 
ing 50Z.  clear  wealth;  fifty  acres  of  land,  ten  of  them 
seated  and  cleared,  being  taken  as  50£.  wealth.  The 
charge  was  a  departure  from  popular  government: 
while  the  shortening  of  the  term  of  the  Councillors  made 
them  more  likely  representative  of  the  current  feelings 
of  the  voters,  the  number  of  voters  appears  to  have  been 
cut  down  considerably  by  the  disqualifying  of  those 
who  merely  paid  "scot  and  lot." 

This  would  indicate  that,  perhaps  owing  to  the 
changes  in  the  population,  there  now  was  less  liberalism 
among  the  politicians  in  control,  in  fact  an  instinctive 
tightening  of  the  reins  by  the  well-to-do  Quakers.  The 
Assembly  had  proposed  three  years  as  the  time  of  resi- 
dence necessary  for  voting  or  being  elected,  but  Mark- 
ham  and  his  Council,  there  being  present  Shippen, 
Morris,  Lloyd,  Brinckloe,  Clark,  Hill,  and  Robinson, 
had  it  amended  to  two.  Those  imposing  the  tax  at  this 
session  took  care  of  the  interests  of  the  property 
holders,  and  showed  no  inclination  to  be  munificent  to 
the  man  living  from  hand  to  mouth.  The  tax  was  to  be 
at  the  rate  of  one  penny  per  pound  on  the  appraised 
value  of  the  capital,  or  in  other  words  about  four  tenths 
of  one  per  cent.,  a  moderate  charge  when  only  occa- 
sional. The  tax  was  to  be  on  both  personal  and  real 
estate,  but  the  personalty  was  to  be  exclusive  of  all 
debts  and  of  household  goods  and  implements  in  use. 
Both  personal  and  real  estate  were  to  be  valued  by  the 
Assemblymen  serving  from  the  respective  counties  with 
the  assistance  of  four  or  more  of  "the  most  substan- 
tial freeholders:"  and  we  may  presume  that  unpro- 
ductive land,  noth withstanding  the  inevitable  enhance- 
ment for  which  it  was  being  held,  was  not  appraised 
very  high  by  such  assessors.  The  rate  was  kept  down 
somewhat  by  there  being  no  exemption  of  any  male 
inhabitant   over   twentv-one   vears   old   who   had   six 


Failure  in  Government.  301 

months  previously  finished  his  servitude.  More  than 
this,  every  such  male  inhabitant  whose  estate  was  less 
than  seventy-two  pounds  contributed  six  shillings,  the 
same  as  if  his  estate  amounted  to  seventy-two  pounds, 
the  tax  being  changed  at  that  sum  to  a  rate  per  pound. 
He  who  had  not  seventy-two  pounds  thus  paid  more  in 
proportion  than  he  who  had.  Fletcher's  law  of  1693 
imposing  Id.  per  I.  had  been  different,  allowing  the  tax- 
payers worth  less  than  one  hundred  pounds  to  get  off 
by  paying  six  shillings.  The  only  estates  exempted  by 
the  Act  of  1696  were  the  Proprietary's  and  his  Deputy- 
Governor's.  The  poorer  inhabitants  lifted  no  voice 
against  the  Frame  and  the  tax  law,  passed  by  repre- 
sentatives chosen  by  more  general  suffrage  than  was  to 
choose  their  successors.  When,  in  after  times,  in  fact 
down  to  the  American  Revolution,  those  appointed  by 
a  small  electorate  passed  tax  laws  largely  copying  this 
one,  there  was  "taxation  without  representation"  in 
Pennsylvania. 

It  was  not  with  the  inequalities  of  taxation  bearing 
upon  the  poor,  but  with  the  changes  in  the  constitution 
that  discontent  showed  itself.  John  Goodson  had  pro- 
tested. The  day  for  election  of  Councillors  and  As- 
semblymen being  the  same  as  under  the  old  Frame, 
voters  in  Philadelphia  County  not  aware  of  the  altera- 
tion in  the  government,  appeared,  and  three  fourths 
of  those  present  chose  according  to  the  old  Frame,  and 
two  days  afterwards  drew  up  a  remonstrance  to  the 
Governor,  asking  for  their  rights,  but  the  three  Coun- 
cillors chosen  were  not  admitted.  According  to  the 
minutes  of  the  Council  for  May  10  and  12,  1697,  the 
Sheriffs  returned  that  the  following  were  chosen  as 
Councillors:  Carpenter  and  Shippen  from  Philadel- 
phia, Growdon  and  Phineas  Pemberton  from  Bucks, 
Simcock  and  Pusey  from  Chester,  Alricks  and  Halliwell 
from  New  Castle,  Griffith  Jones  and  John  Curtis  from 
Kent,  and  Clark  and  John  Hill  from  Sussex.    Griffith 


302  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Jones  (apparently  the  one  elected  Councillor  from 
Kent),  Francis  Rawle,  Robert  Turner,  and  Arthur 
Cooke,  four  important  men,  who  could  scarcely  be  said 
to  represent  a  single  faction,  wrote  to  Penn  on  2mo. 
9,  1697,  for  redress  of  grievances,  complaining  of  the 
failure  to  observe  the  forms  of  the  old  Frame  in  mak- 
ing the  alterations,  speaking  of  the  promulgation  of 
bills  to  be  passed  as  "a  privilege  we  could  hardly  suffi- 
ciently value,"  and  declaring  the  change  in  number  of 
representatives  and  in  the  qualification  of  voters  a  de- 
parture from  fundamentals,  and  reporting  as  illegal 
the  collection  of  the  tax  before  Penn's  ratification  of 
the  act.  Jones  refused  to  qualify  as  a  Councillor,  un- 
less he  could  be  admitted  under  the  old  Charter. 

In  reply  to  a  representation  from  Fletcher  that  the 
charge  for  Pennsylvania's  quota  for  a  year  would  be 
2000£.  and  upwards,  and  that  he  needed  fifty  men  for 
the  forces  required  at  Albany,  and  his  request  for 
twenty-five  men  or  the  proportionate  sum,  the  As- 
sembly, which  on  May  12,  1697,  chose  John  Blunston 
as  Speaker,  unanimously  on  the  following  day  adopted 
a  report  prepared  by  a  joint  committee  from  Council 
and  Assembly,  that,  as  the  former  3001.  had  not  been 
collected  and  paid  to  those  who  had  lent  the  sum,  the 
Assembly  could  not  raise  any  more  money. 

A  letter  from  Secretary  Blathwayt  desiring  an  ar- 
ticle of  association  to  be  signed,  it  was  on  May  24 
signed  by  Markham  and  the  members  of  Council  and 
Assembly  free  by  their  religious  principles  to  do  so. 
The  Quaker  members  presented  a  declaration  of  their 
loyalty  to  the  King. 

Randolph,  who  had  a  great  friend  in  Sir  Robert 
Southwell,  one  of  the  Commissioners  of  Customs,  re- 
iterated the  complaints  against  the  colonial,  and  par- 
ticularly the  Proprietary,  governments.  While  the 
King's  advisers  were  very  slow  in  moving  towards  the 
suggested   abolition   of   Proprietary   authority,   Ran- 


Failure  in  Government.  303 

dolph,  in  spite  of  the  Proprietaries'  claim  that  their 
Lieutenant-Governors  should  be  Vice  Admirals, 
achieved  the  erection  of  Courts  of  Admiralty  in  each 
colony,  with  the  Judge,  Register,  and  Marshall  and  an 
Attorney-General,  all  appointed  by  the  Crown;  and, 
upon  Randolph's  recommendation,  Robert  Quary  was 
made  Judge  for  Penn's  dominions  and  West  Jersey. 
Quary,  formerly  of  South  Carolina,  but  at  this  time  re- 
siding in,  or  occasionally  visiting  Philadelphia  for  pur- 
poses of  trade, — his  title  of  Colonel  being  an  honorary 
one,  connected  with  his  public  office  in  Carolina — is  the 
subject  of  much  animadversion  in  the  published  Penn 
and  Logan  Correspondence,  but,  against  the  idea  of 
Quary 's  character  to  be  obtained  therefrom,  it  must  be 
remembered  that  he  was  the  representative  of  the 
King's  rights,  and  had  a  duty  in  antagonism  to  Penn's 
interests.  , 

The  House  of  Lords  having,  on  Feb.  10,  1696-7,  ap- 
pointed a  Committee  to  consider  the  state  of  trade, 
Penn  appeared  before  it  several  times,  maintained  his 
right  to  appoint  a  Governor  over  New  Castle,  as  the 
Duke  of  York  had  done,  announced  that  the  late  act 
relating  to  the  plantation  trade  had  been  put  in  execu- 
tion, made  excuses  for  Markham,  and  suggested  a 
series  of  regulations  for  preventing  illegal  trade,  and 
that  there  be  free  trade  between  the  colonies,  without 
such  imposts  as  Maryland  had  laid  on  goods  destined 
for  Pennsylvania.  Presenting  on  March  4  some  pro- 
posals for  the  advancement  of  trade  in  America,  Penn 
was  asked  what  objection  he  had  to  Randolph's  sugges- 
tion that  Proprietary  governments  be  abolished.  Penn 
replied  that  the  soil  would  be  worth  nothing  to  him  the 
moment  after  he  lost  the  government:  he  and  his 
family  would  be  ruined;  for  he  could  not  then  sell  an 
acre  of  land.  He  proposed  that  Markham,  whom  he  had 
formally  nominated,  be  approved  as  Deputy-Governor, 
and  give  security;  but  the  House  of  Lords,  in  address- 


304  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

ing  the  King  to  have  the  Proprietary  Governors  re- 
ceive the  same  instructions  as  Boyal  Governors,  and 
to  make  the  Proprietaries  answerable  for  their  Gover- 
nors' misbehavior,  asked  that  the  Proprietaries  them- 
selves give  bond  for  the  observance  of  the  instructions. 
A  letter  from  the  King,  dated  April  22,  1697,  to  the 
various  Governors  and  Proprietaries,  including  Penn, 
said  that  great  abuses  must  result  from  the  insolvency 
of  the  sureties  on  the  bonds  for  taking  cargoes  to 
England,  or  the  remissness  of  past  and  present  Gov- 
ernors, who  should  duly  prosecute  such  bonds.  The 
letter  to  Penn  warned  him  that  a  failure  to  enforce  the 
laws  might  lead  to  a  forfeiture  of  his  patent.  Subse- 
quently, Penn  was  notified  to  sign  a  bond  to  obey  the 
instructions. 

Capt.  Daniell,  coming  with  Acting  Commodore 
Wager  to  New  Castle  and  Philadelphia  in  the  month  fol- 
lowing the  affair  at  New  Castle,  and  being  entertained 
by  Markham,  unpleasantly  referred  to  the  losing  of  the 
men,  although  having  promised  Wager  not  to  do  so. 
After  three  of  Darnell's  crew,  on  March  8,  deserted 
from  his  vessel  in  the  Patuxent  Eiver,  going  off  at  night 
in  the  barge,  Daniell,  while  offering  to  entertain  Mark- 
ham  in  return,  if  he  would  pay  a  visit,  wrote  to  Mark- 
ham  that  he  (Daniell)  supposed  that  these  three  men 
had  gone  to  Pennsylvania,  knowing  how  ready  Mark- 
ham  and  all  under  him  were  to  entertain  and  protect 
deserters,  "to  the  great  prejudice  of  his  Majesty's  ser- 
vice and  trade,  except  to  your  quaking  subjects,  that 
never  did  the  King  or  Kingdom  any  service. ' '  Having 
been  informed  that  deserters  from  his  (Daniell 's)  ship 
had  appeared  publicly  daily,  and  offered  themselves  to 
sea  captains,  Daniell  added:  "I  wonder  you  should 
rather  endeavour  to  gratify  the  men  aforesaid  than 
have  a  regard  to  his  Majesty's  service."  Markham 
spiritedly  replied  on  March  30  that  the  letter  was  "so 
rude  and  indecent  that  it  seems  rather  penned  in  the 


Failure  in  Government.  305 

cook  room  than  in  the  great  cabin;"  he  would  secure 
the  men,  if  found,  but  why  was  no  notice  taken  of  the 
fact  that  they  must  have  passed  through  the  whole 
length  of  Maryland?  Yet,  on  a  surmise  that  they  had 
reached  Pennsylvania,  its  inhabitants  were  vilified. 
Markham  called  attention  to  Daniell's  carelessness; 
when  Markham  was  in  the  navy,  oars  and  sails  were 
not  left  in  the  boats  at  night,  when  there  was  likelihood 
of  any  of  the  men  running  away.  Daniell  had  penned 
this  sentence :  ' '  It  will  be  in  vain  for  any  ships  to  trade 
here  so  long  as  they  have  encouragement  to  run  to  your 
parts  whence  they  are  allowed  to  go  trampuseing 
where  they  please. ' '  Markham,  in  his  reply,  said :  "I 
know  not  what  you  mean  by  trampuseing  unless  you 
aimed  at  French  to  show  your  breeding  which  you  have 
ill  set  forth  in  your  mother  tongue."  Markham  fin- 
ished by  expressing  disinclination  to  be  entertained 
by  Daniell. 

Governor  Nicholson  of  Maryland  lent  a  willing  ear 
to  what  was  reported  against  Pennsylvania,  prejudiced 
as  a  strong  Churchman  against  Quakers,  and  doubtless 
desirous  of  the  achievement  of  the  great  reform  sug- 
gested by  Randolph,  and  hoped  for  by  a  party  in  Penn- 
sylvania, viz:  the  annexation  of  at  least  the  Lower 
Counties,  if  not  of  the  Province  also,  to  Nicholson's 
jurisdiction.  On  March  27,  1697,  in  reply  to  the  Com- 
missioners for  Trade,  Nicholson  wrote  a  long  letter, 
which  as  to  Markham  and  Pennsylvania  repeated  much 
that  had  been  said  by  Randolph,  and  reported  the 
affair  of  Day  and  the  loss  of  Daniell's  men. 

When  Penn  heard  of  this  letter,  almost  simulta- 
neously came  stories  of  the  wickedness  in  the  colony. 
The  Quaker  Justices,  while  getting  severe  against  non- 
Quakers,  were  showing  leniency,  almost  levity,  when 
called  upon  to  punish  immorality  in  members  of  their 
own  Society.  It  looked  as  if  the  Society  was  becoming 
a  nobility  or  caste,  those  within  which  would  stand 

20 


306  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

by  one  another.  Penn  wrote  in  7th  month  (Septem- 
ber), 1697,  to  the  Council,  to  issue  orders  for  suppress- 
ing forbidden  trade  and  piracy  and  vice  and  looseness, 
until  some  severe  laws  could  be  passed,  and  to  let  no 
license  be  granted  to  keep  public  houses  except  to  those 
who  gave  good  security  for  the  conducting  of  them,  and 
who  were  known  to  be  "of  sober  conversation,"  and 
that  the  County  Courts  have  the  approbation,  if  not  the 
licensing.  The  result  was  a  proclamation  of  the  12th 
of  February  rather  vindicating  the  conduct  of  magis- 
trates and  people,  but  urging  them  to  greater  efforts, 
and  authorizing  the  Justices  of  each  of  the  six  counties 
after  the  1st  of  March  to  nominate  for  said  county  those 
who  alone  would  be  licensed  or  permitted  by  the  Gov- 
ernor to  keep  taverns,  inns,  or  drinking  places,  which 
"condescension"  of  the  Governor,  limiting  his  right  to 
license,  was  embodied  in  a  law  of  1699,  together  with  a 
power  in  three  of  the  Justices  to  disqualify  from  keep- 
ing drinking  places  in  future  those  who  allowed  dis- 
orders. 

The  Governor  of  Maryland,  Nicholson  or  whoever 
should  be  such  Governor  at  any  time,  was  authorized 
by  the  Admiralty  on  June  26,  1697,  to  appoint  Judges, 
Registers,  Marshalls,  and  Advocates  for  Admiralty 
Courts  of  Maryland,  Pennsylvania,  and  West  Jersey 
on  the  death  or  disability  of  those  in  office.  The  Board 
of  Trade  summoned  Penn  in  the  Fall  of  1697.  Fortu- 
nately, the  war  with  France  was  over :  the  question  of 
defence  was  no  longer  a  complication.  Reminding  the 
Lords  that  Markham  had  been,  not  Penn's,  but  the  late 
Queen's  choice,  to  serve  during  the  war,  Penn  wrote  on 
8ber  15,  offering  to  turn  out  Markham,  if  he  had  be>- 
haved  badly,  but,  as  he  ought  not  to  be  judged  ex  parte, 
asking  that  the  Earl  of  Bellomont  be  ordered  to  inquire. 
Richard  Coote,  Earl  of  Bellomont  in  the  peerage  of 
Ireland,  had  been  commissioned  on  June  18,  1697,  as 
Governor  of  New  York,  Massachusetts  Bay,  and  New 


Failure  in  Government.  307 

Hampshire.  Penn  was  able  to  bring  to  Markham's  de- 
fence the  agents  upon  whose  presence  in  England 
Nicholson  and  his  party  were  relying.  Francis  Jones, 
before  mentioned,  was  the  bearer  of  a  later  letter  from 
Nicholson,  but,  although  examined  by  the  Commis- 
sioners for  Trade,  Jones  regretted  that  his  application 
to  Nicholson  against  Day  had  eventuated  in  Nicholson's 
representation  against  Pennsylvania,  and  so  Jones 
wrote  a  letter,  dated  9ber  13,  addressed  to  Penn,  and 
read  before  the  Commissioners,  correcting  some  of 
Nicholson's  statements,  and  saying  that  Markham,  not- 
withstanding Jones's  anger  against  him,  was  the  best 
fitted  man  to  administer  the  colony,  having  during  the 
five  years  of  Jones's  residence  or  visiting  there,  gov- 
erned to  the  satisfaction  of  the  substantial  inhabitants 
and  traders,  until  some  turbulent  and  discontented 
people  from  other  colonies,  particularly  one  Snead 
from  Jamaica,  had  arrived,  and  started  a  correspon- 
dence with  Maryland.  Nicholson,  on  subsequently 
sending  over  a  witness  to  England,  hoped  that  he  would 
be  examined  before  Penn  could  "get  at  him."  Quary, 
moreover,  in  a  letter  avowed  having  advised  Mark- 
ham  to  commission  Day.  Snead  attributed  the  letter  to 
Penn's  assistance  in  Quary 's  securing  most  of  Charles 
Sanders's  business.  Quary  explained  to  Snead  that 
Penn  had  now  the  King's  friendship,  the  King  writing 
to  Penn  "particularly"  (personally?)  from  Flanders, 
and  satisfying  him  of  the  King's  proceedings  there,  as 
if  Penn  were  of  the  Privy  Council.  There  was  also  a 
report  that  Penn  had  by  letter  advised  Fletcher  to 
linger  in  America,  Penn  having,  it  was  said,  no  doubt 
about  being  able  to  get  the  Governorship  of  Maryland 
for  Fletcher. 

In  the  closing  years  of  that  Century  and  the  opening 
years  of  the  next,  there  flourished  the  pirates  most 
celebrated  in  tradition,  and  from  works  of  fiction  based 
upon  their  career.    Some  indeed  were  mutineers  who 


308  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

had  left  port  on  an  honest  voyage,  a  few  may  have 
gathered  or  joined  the  ship's  company  upon  a  plain 
agreement  to  undertake  piracy,  which  is  denned  as 
robbery  at  sea,  and  others,  after  starting  on  a  legal 
errand,  had  yielded  to  the  temptation  presented  by  an 
opportunity  to  enrich  themselves.  Hardly  ever  was  a 
naval  officer  of  rank  guilty  of  such  capital  offence ;  but 
mariners  from  the  merchant  service,  intrusted  with 
armed  vessels  as  privateers,  often  made  criminal  use 
of  their  power.  It  was  a  legitimate  war  measure  to 
offer  the  property  at  sea  of  the  hostile  people  as  booty 
to  any  dare-devil  who  would  go  after  it.  An  unprin- 
cipled prize-seeker  would  not  respect  a  neutral ;  a  des- 
perate character  would  attack  the  vessels  of  his  own 
nation:  and  all  this  was  true  often  of  those  who  had 
previously  kept  within  the  limits  of  law.  The  valuable 
products  of  the  Indies  which  led  Europeans  to  establish 
settlements  for  trade  in  those  regions,  tempted  British 
sailors  to  the  Indian  Ocean,  to  waylay  the  cargoes  being 
carried  from  one  point  to  another  of  those  coasts.  If 
justice  might  ferret  out  those  who  attacked  their  own 
countrymen,  still  an  Asiatic  merchantman  might  be 
plundered  with  comparative  impunity.  If,  indeed,  the 
operations  were  mostly  in  distant  waters,  because  more 
was  found  there  to  steal,  yet  the  rovers  came  to  the 
sparsely  settled  coasts  of  America  to  dispose  of  their 
spoil,  or  to  escape  punishment,  and  preyed  upon  what 
they  found  in  their  path.  After  the  capture  of  one  or 
two  good  prizes  and  distribution  of  the  spoil,  the  crews 
were  reduced  or  gradually  disbanded,  and  various  de- 
tachments, as  opportunity  presented  itself,  made  their 
way  to  the  home  ports,  or  to  the  colonies,  many  of  the 
individuals  with  the  intention  of  finding  some  honest 
calling,  or  at  least  living  peaceably  upon  their  gains. 

Villagers  or  farmers  unused  to  fighting  among  whom 
any  men  of  physical  strength  and  some  ready  money 
came    amicably,    were    not   anxious    to    question    any 


Failure  in  Government.  309 

plausible  account  such  men  gave  of  themselves:  even 
officials  in  England,  with  all  their  power,  corruptly  or 
in  hopes  of  finding  such  experienced  seamen  useful, 
left  those  thought  guilty  undisturbed.  Randolph,  in 
1696,  furnished  a  list  of  fifteen  pirates  from  the  Red 
Sea  who  came  to  Philadelphia  from  South  Carolina  in 
1692,  and  he  also  said  that  some  pirates  in  the  city, 
when  in  their  cups,  had  boasted  of  capturing  an  eastern 
princess  on  the  way  to  marry  some  great  man,  and  of 
throwing  her  overboard  after  violating  her.  The  origi- 
nal fifteen  had  come  during  Lloyd's  rule.  It  was  hy- 
pocritical in  Randolph  to  speak  of  them;  for  he  had 
offered  to  pardon  all  such  pirates,  if  they  would  make 
up  a  sum  of  money  to  cover  the  expense  of  securing 
afresh  the  authority  to  pardon  which  he  had  under 
King  James ;  of  course  a  sum  large  enough  to  leave  a 
fee  for  Randolph.  Doing  without  this  pardon,  these 
early  pirates  had  lived  unmolested,  some  marrying  and 
owning  houses.  Markham,  whether  under  Fletcher  or 
Penn,  welcomed  other  settlers  of  this  kind,  as  contrib- 
uting by  their  money  to  the  prosperity  of  the  colony. 
Colonial  Governors,  either  for  the  presents  they  re- 
ceived, or  because  they  were  at  the  mercy  of  any  large 
crew,  or  to  secure  some  one  to  chase  away  the  privateers 
or  war  vessels  of  France,  and  sometimes  for  all  three 
reasons,  made  friends  with  mariners  of  whose  previous 
career  they  were  suspicious,  and  granted  them  pardon, 
assistance,  and  letters  of  marque.  It  was  charged  that 
Fletcher  made  large  sums  by  this  course  both  in  New 
York  and  Pennsylvania.  Markham  acknowledged  that 
some  small  presents  had  been  at  the  same  time  made 
to  himself,  and  that  one  captain  of  a  privateer  left  him 
a  legacy.  Ex-pirates,  ostensibly  retired  privateersmen, 
became  quickly  of  such  consequence  in  the  various 
colonies,  affiliating  in  business  or  social  friendship  or 
by  intermarriage  with  the  local  officeholders,  that  they 
seemed  intrenched:  and,  moreover,  the  leading  mer- 


310  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

chants  found  that  the  most  profitable  ventures  by  sea 
were  by  the  employment  of  captains  who  would  bring 
goods  without  explanation;  nor  were  men  of  saintly 
record  particularly  looked  for  in  the  supposedly  justi- 
fiable enterprise  of  trading  with  red-handed  sea  rob- 
bers, or  even  in  the  desperado's  game  of  robbing  them 
in  turn.  The  magistracy  of  the  various  colonies  was 
practically  given  to  the  merchants:  for  scarcely  was 
there  an  inhabitant  financially  independent  of  traders 
and  trade.  Penn,  to  be  sure,  was  situated  aloof,  but  his 
colony  had  so  little  of  his  presence. 

The  island  of  Madagascar,  already  visited  by  legiti- 
mate traders,  had  many  spots  where  disorderly  crews 
could  hide.  Some  pirates  settled  there,  building  forts, 
even  conquering  the  natives,  among  whom  they  mar- 
ried, and  over  whom  they  tyrannized.  It  is  supposed 
that  the  first  settlers  were  the  followers  of  Captain 
Thomas  Tew,  who,  after  being  commissioned  by  Gov- 
ernor Fletcher  for  privateering  against  the  French, 
started  as  a  pirate  for  the  Red  Sea.  Whether  with  the 
ex-rovers  settled  in  Madagascar,  or  with  those  pirates 
bringing  towards  it  their  plunder,  there  grew  up  a  sur- 
reptitious trade  from  the  American  colonies,  managed 
in  the  following  way,  when  trade  with  that  island  be- 
came suspected  or  prohibited:  a  lawful  cargo  was 
carried  from  the  colonies  to  Madeira;  there  wine  and 
brandy  were  taken  aboard;  and  thence  the  vessel  pro- 
ceeded to  Madagascar,  where  barter  was  made  for  the 
goods  which  the  pirates  had  found;  and  these  were 
brought  back,  and  commanded  high  prices. 

A  book  written  some  years  after  the  death  of  John, 
or  Henry,  Every,  or  Avery,  purporting  to  give  his 
career,  calls  him  "King  of  Madagascar,"  but  he  was 
not  a  "pirate  King"  in  that  sense.  Every  had  been 
mate  of  a  vessel  fitted  out  at  Bristol  in  1694  in  the  ser- 
vice of  the  Spaniards.  On  May  30  of  that  year,  when 
off  the  mouth  of  the  Garonne,  he  secured  command  of 


Failuke  in  Government.  311 

the  ship,  and  set  sail  for  the  Indian  Ocean,  allowing  on 
the  next  day  the  captain  and  a  few  faithful  ones  to  go 
off  in  the  long  boat.  At  Madagascar,  Every  made  a 
combined  fleet  with  men  who  had  run  away  with  two 
sloops  from  the  West  Indies.  A  ship  belonging  to  the 
Great  Mogul  was  captured ;  a  proceeding  which  nearly 
caused  the  extirpation  of  the  East  India  Company's 
settlements,  for  the  Great  Mogul,  not  discriminating 
between  one  Englishman  and  another,  threatened  so  to 
revenge  himself.  Every  got  the  treasure  into  his  own 
vessel,  which  then  sailed  away  from  the  sloops  which 
had  aided  him.  He  reached  the  Bahamas  in  April, 
1696,  and,  calling  himself  Henry  Bridgeman,  and  the 
ship  the  "Fancy,"  secured  permission  to  land  at  New 
Providence  with  his  200  men,  on  their  giving  security. 
In  the  company  was  James  Brown,  who,  in  an  examina- 
tion later,  said  that  Every,  an  old  acquaintance,  and  not 
known  by  Brown  to  be  a  pirate,  had  let  him  come  as  a 
passenger.  Brown  had  sailed  from  Boston,  Massa- 
chusetts, to  trade  with  Madagascar.  The  company  of 
the  ' '  Fancy ' '  scattering,  and  some  coming  to  the  North 
American  colonies,  Brown  got  back  to  Boston  eleven 
months  after  leaving  that  town.  The  innocency  of  his 
voyage  outward  being  suspected,  he  answered  some 
queries  before  certain  officials,  and  was  let  go.  He  was 
in  Philadelphia  and  already  married  to  the  Lieutenant- 
Governor's  daughter  by  April  26,  1698,  the  date  of  a 
letter  from  Bandolph  to  the  Commissioners  for  Trade. 
Very  likely  a  part  of  Every 's  crew  is  referred  to  in  a 
story  that  in  the  Spring  of  1696  thirty  pirates,  having 
made  8000Z.  each  by  robbing  vessels  in  the  Bed  Sea, 
arrived  at  New  York  in  a  ship  from  Madagascar,  and 
proceeded  unmolested  to  Pennsylvania.  Every  him- 
self going  to  Ireland,  he  and  six  of  his  men  were  in- 
dicted for  piracy:  he  escaped,  but  the  six  were  hung. 

The   Lords   Justices   of  England   having  issued   a 
proclamation  for  the  arrest  of  Every 's  companions,  and 


312  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Snead,  who  was  a  County  Justice,  having  seen  a  copy 
of  it,  he  with  some  difficulty  induced  Markham  to  have 
three  arrested,  viz:  Robert  Chinton,  or  Clinton,  said 
to  have  been  Every 's  chief  lieutenant,  Edmund  Lassall, 
and  Peter  Claussen.  "Whatever  may  be  said  of  Robert 
Snead,  who  had  been  a  carpenter  in  Jamaica,  he  was 
valiant,  a  quality  which  apparently  had  caused  him  to 
receive  the  rank  of  Captain  and  a  seat  on  the  local 
bench.  It  took  a  brave  man  to  meddle  with  ex-pirates, 
and,  as  he  desired  authority  to  hunt  out  not  only  these 
three  but  others,  Markham  actually  deprived  him  of  the 
arms  which  he  carried  and  seemed  ready  to  use,  so  that 
Snead  rode  at  least  once  to  his  plantation  out  of  town 
defenceless.  Snead 's  story  is  that  when  he  first  urged 
Markham  to  arrest  Every 's  men,  Markham 's  wife  and 
daughter  slipped  out,  and  told  Chinton,  and  that  vari- 
ous pirates  thereafter  muttered  "informer"  as  Snead 
passed  along  the  street.  The  Council  expressed  wil- 
lingness to  spend  the  money  to  send  the  three  to 
England  for  trial.  Certain  of  Snead 's  colleagues  on 
the  bench  of  Philadelphia  County  authorized  bail. 
There  was  a  difficulty  about  trying  them,  the  crimes 
having  been  committed  on  the  high  seas,  where  the 
colonial  courts  had  no  jurisdiction,  and  it  was  thought 
that  the  Governor  could  not  grant  a  special  commission 
for  a  court  to  hear  the  case  without  encroaching  upon 
the  prerogatives  of  the  Admiralty.  The  accused  ap- 
pear not  to  have  found  bail,  and  were  in  prison  when 
on  June  16,  1697,  Markham  received  orders  from 
England  to  secure  the  persons  of  all  pirates  and  sea 
robbers  and  those  reasonably  suspected  of  being  such. 
He  then  ordered  these  three  to  be  put  in  close  confine- 
ment, and  their  goods  and  effects  to  be  seized.  With 
the  help  of  friends,  however,  the  three  that  very  night 
got  out  of  what  the  Sheriff  called  the  safest  part  of  the 
jail.  Claussen  was  caught,  but  Chinton  and  Lassall 
escaped,  and,  although  pursued,  said  the  Sheriff,  "with 


Failure  in  Government.  313 

horse  and  foot,"  reached  New  York,  where  they  were 
seized  but  let  go.     A  woman's  story  of  their  being 
among  the  bushes  about  a  mile  out  High  street  on  the 
17th  or  18th,  received  little  attention,  probably  because 
they  were  reported  heavily  armed.     Four  of  the  old 
pirates  who  arrived  in  1692,  were  ordered  to  be  ar- 
rested, but  the  Sheriff  returned  that  they  could  not  be 
found.     The  Sheriff  was  John  Claypoole,  mentioned 
in  a  former  chapter.     Much  suspicion  was   cast  by 
Markham's  enemies  upon  the  zeal  and  sincerity  of  this 
Sheriff,  who,  in  February  following,  was  stated  by  both 
Churchman  and  Quaker  Justices  to  be  unable  to  serve 
on  account  of  lameness  and  misbehavior.    In  view  of  a 
warrant  of  June  19,  John  Matthews,  who  had  been  on 
Every 's  ship,  surrendered  himself,  claiming  to  have 
been  captured  and  impressed  by  Every,  and  was  com- 
mitted to  prison,  where  he  died  in  a  few  days.    Within 
a  month,  one  of  the  four  old  pirates,  Charles  Gosse, 
who  was  about  to  leave  the  province,  was  killed  in  a 
quarrel  with  a  Frenchman.    At  the  funeral,  two  days 
later,  there  was  a  small  riot.    Snead,  going  as  a  magis- 
trate to  quell  it,  was  assaulted,— violently,  it  is  said — 
and,  in  defending  himself,  wounded  a  man.    It  being 
supposed  that  Medlicott,  said  to  have  been  surgeon's 
mate  to  one  of  the  four  pirates  in  a  trip  to  the  Red 
Sea,  and  at  this  time  in  command  of  a  sloop  in  Dela- 
ware River,  was  intending  to  carry  away  the  various 
pirates   or  privateersmen,   Markham  made  him  give 
bond  in  2000Z.  not  to  do  so :  nevertheless  it  is  supposed 
that  Chinton  and  Lassell,  and  doubtless  others,  sailed 
away  with  him. 

By  a  statute  of  27  &  28  Hen.  VIII,  piracy  was  to  be 
tried  by  commissioners  under  the  great  seal  of 
England.  Quary's  commission  as  Admiralty  Judge  did 
not  authorize  him  to  try  for  that  offence.  So  without 
trial,  Claussen,  who  was  a  cooper  by  trade,  and  had 
been  on  a  Hamburg  vessel  captured  by  Every  off  the 


314  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Isle  of  France,  and  forced,  it  was  said,  to  go  with 
Every,  remained  in  prison  for  several  years:  and  so 
did  David  Evans,  arrested  about  May,  1698,  who 
claimed  to  have  been  acquitted  of  being  an  associate 
of  Every,  because  of  also  being  forced  to  join,  and  who 
was  committed  in  default  of  bail  to  remain  in  the 
province  until  he  produced  the  record  of  acquittal. 

In  1698,  the  Councillors  were  reelected  except  Pem- 
berton,  Pusey,  Alricks,  and  Jones,  who  respectively 
were  replaced  by  Biles,  Lloyd,  Donnaldson,  and  Wil- 
liam Eodeney  (now  Rodney).  Pemberton  was  chosen 
Speaker  of  the  Assembly.  Among  the  acts  then  passed 
was  one  for  preventing  frauds  and  regulating  abuses  in 
trade.  It  added  to  the  penalties  and  forfeitures  pre- 
scribed by  Act  of  Parliament  fines  by  the  Governor  and 
Council  not  exceeding  the  value  of  the  goods,  and  fur- 
thermore prohibited,  except  by  permit  from  the  Customs 
officers,  the  lading  or  unlading  of  tobacco  by  vessels  from 
foreign  or  other  parts,  and  the  carrying  of  tobacco  to 
other  provinces,  or  the  transport  of  it  to  outgoing 
vessels,  or  for  being  shipped  to  another  part  of  the 
Province  or  Territories.  Markham,  so  impecunious 
that  he  had  wished  to  be  also  Collector  of  the  Port  of 
Philadelphia,  must  have  been  pleased  with  a  duty  pay- 
able to  the  Governor  for  the  time  being  of  M.  per  ton 
on  incoming  vessels  of  which  a  majority  of  the  owners 
were  not  inhabitants,  and  of  4d.  on  those  of  which  a 
majority  were  inhabitants ;  and  it  was  directed  that  the 
fines  or  forfeitures  not  otherwise  disposed  of  were  to 
go  I  to  the  King's  use,  £  to  the  Governor,  and  |  to  the 
person  suing  therefor.  There  was  a  provision  to  ob- 
viate the  inability  of  "most  part  of  the  merchants, 
traders,  &  owners  of  ships  or  vessells  within  this  gov- 
ernment being  of  ye  people  called  Quakers"  to  register 
their  vessels  under  the  before  mentioned  Act  of  7  &  8 
Wm.  Ill,  c.  22,  that  Act  requiring  an  oath.  The  Frame 
of  Government  of  1696  contained  a  proviso  that  no  per- 


Failure  in  Government.  315 

son  should  be  excused  from  swearing  who  was  required 
to  take  an  oath  by  the  Acts  of  Parliament  relating  to 
trade  and  navigation.  The  Councillors  and  Assembly- 
men stated  in  their  Vindication,  dated  3mo.  30,  1698, 
that  Quakers  were  allowed  to  register  by  affirmation 
in  England;  while  John  Bewley,  the  Collector  of  Phila- 
delphia, was  inclined  to  act  accordingly,  Randolph  had, 
on  April  21,  threatened  him  with  dismissal  in  case  he  did 
not  require  an  oath  by  laying  hand  on  the  Bible  and 
kissing  the  Bible.  So  the  Assembly  now  provided  that 
those  who  could  not  conscientiously  take  an  oath,  might 
make  an  affirmation  whenever  an  oath  was  required  by 
the  Act  of  7  &  8  Wm.  III.  It  was  also  enacted  that,  in 
any  court  held  in  the  Province  or  Territories  upon  bill, 
complaint,  or  information  for  breach  of  the  Acts  of 
Trade  or  Navigation,  the  trial  should  be  according  to 
the  common  law  and  by  jury,  a  procedure  entirely 
foreign  to  Quary's  commission  as  Admiralty  Judge. 
Such  features  of  the  act  were  complained  of  by  the 
King's  officials,  and  the  Commissioners  of  Customs 
raised  a  question  whether  Markham  should  not  be  re- 
moved from  office  for  consenting.  Penn,  to  ward  this 
off,  announced  that  he  had  negatived  the  act.  His 
power  to  veto  an  act  passed  by  his  deputy  with  consent 
of  the  freemen  was  denied  a  few  years  later,  but  he  at 
least  could  agree  to  having  the  King  disallow  an  act, 
and  this  act  was  formally  disallowed  in  1699.  Penn 
also  called  the  attention  of  the  Commissioners  for 
Trade  to  the  mention  of  juries  in  the  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  expressed  the  hope  that  the  unskilfulness  of 
the  Assemblymen  in  law  would  cause  them  to  be  ex- 
cused, as  mistaken  instead  of  disobedient. 

While  the  local  act  was  in  force,  a  court  held  by  the 
colony's  Judges  undertook  to  exercise  Admiralty 
powers,  and  condemned  a  vessel.  This  was  one  of  a 
series  of  proceedings  calculated  to  supplant  the  Ad- 
miralty judicature  appointed  by  the  chief  officers  of  the 


316  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

realm.  Desirable  as  it  might  be  to  reform  the  adminis- 
tration of  justice  by  introducing  trial  by  jury  in  every 
branch,  no  king,  no  national  authority,  could  tolerate 
the  dwellers  in  a  little  corner  of  an  empire  interfering 
with  what  the  national  authority  sanctioned. 

Before,  moreover,  the  Quakers  on  the  local  bench  had 
thus  excited  the  displeasure  of  the  rulers  of  England, 
Markham's  friends  and  he  himself  had  threatened  or 
put  under  duress  the  Surveyor-General  of  the  Customs 
in  a  way  to  prevent  perhaps  through  fear  his  perform- 
ance of  duty.  Because  Randolph,  in  a  representation 
to  the  Commissioners  for  Trade  in  March,  1696-7,  had 
spoken  individiously  of  Patrick  Robinson,  the  Secretary 
of  the  Province,  as  a  Scotchman  &ct.,  Robinson,  on  July 
28,  1698,  appeared  at  Charles  Read's  house,  where 
Randolph  was  lodging,  and,  laying  hands  on  Randolph, 
and  pursuing  him  to  his  bed  room,  forced  him  to  give  a 
letter  explaining  or  weakening  what  he  had  said.  On 
the  next  day,  Randolph  wrote  to  Markham  that  certain 
navigation  bonds  would  be  produced  when  Markham 
appointed  an  Attorney-General  to  prosecute  them,  and 
would  be  put  into  Markham's  hands  upon  the  King's 
approbation  of  the  appointment  of  Markham  as  Gov- 
ernor. Markham,  irritated  by  this  impugning  of  his 
title,  sent  a  constable,  who,  with  his  staff  in  hand,  kept 
Randolph  in  the  house  as  a  prisoner,  until  after  Quary 
had  had  a  pretty  warm  interview  with  Markham,  but 
Randolph  had  given  up  to  him  the  bonds. 

Markham  had  retained  in  his  or  ostensibly  the 
Sheriff's  custody  the  goods  of  the  pirates  who  had  es- 
caped, although  Quary  claimed  the  custody  for  the  Ad- 
miralty. Markham,  under  the  Proprietary's  right  to 
wreckage,  took  into  possession  certain  goods  from  a 
French  vessel  which  had  been  captured  but  lost  at  sea ; 
after  the  Admiralty  Court  decided  that  they  were  law- 
ful prize,  Markham  refused  to  hand  over  what  he 
actually  had,  or  let  the  Sheriff  hand  over  what  the  lat- 


Failure  in  Government.  317 

ter  had,  to  John  Moore,  deputed  to  receive  prize  goods 
by  the  Commissioners  for  Prizes,  Markham  insisting 
upon  waiting  for  an  order  from  the  Proprietary. 

The  climax  in  the  interference  with  Admiralty  pro- 
cedure was  reached  in  August  and  September,  1698. 
John  Adams  of  Boston  shipped  a  cargo  at  New  York 
for  Philadelphia  on  board  of  the  "Jacob,"  of  which  the 
master  was  Francis  Basset.  Basset,  although  the  sur- 
name is  English,  was  only  a  naturalized  subject,  Quary 
calling  him  a  Frenchman.  When  the  ' '  Jacob ' '  arrived 
at  New  Castle,  the  goods  were  seized,  for  want  of  a  cer- 
tificate, and  placeol  in  the  custody  of  Robert  Webb,  de- 
puted to  receive  them  by  the  Admiralty  Court.  Adams 
was  one  of  those  merchants,  probably  like  nearly  all  the 
others  at  a  new  place,  who  peddled  their  goods,  or  sold 
them  at  the  water's  edge,  and  then  departed.  With  no 
dwelling-house  or  store,  time  was  everything  to  him; 
paying  board  in  Philadelphia  destroyed  his  profits.  So 
he  sought  the  Governor  to  have  the  goods  delivered  on 
security  at  an  appraisement,  and  was  referred  by  him 
to  the  Collector.  Exhibiting  a  certificate,  which  had 
subsequently  come  from  New  York,  that  a  certain 
notary  had  seen  letters  of  denization  to  Basset,  Adams 
was  told  by  Judge  Quary  that  it  was  insufficient  to 
qualify  the  captain.  Offering  to  give  security  to 
answer  at  court,  but  being  put  off  with  various  diffi- 
culties about  getting  the  goods  on  such  terms,  mean- 
while obliged  to  pay  storage,  and  incurring  other  ex- 
penses, and  fearing  that  the  goods  might  rot  before  an 
Admiralty  Court  to  try  the  case  were  constituted,  as  the 
Marshall  and  Advocate  had  not  yet  received  their  com- 
missions, Adams  petitioned  the  Lieutenant-Governor 
to  grant  him  a  replevin.  Markham  thought  that  he  had 
no  right  to  meddle  in  a  matter  before  the  Admiralty, 
but  the  next  day,  while  Col.  Quary  was  out  of  town  on 
his  way  to  Maryland,  Adams  went  to  Anthony  Morris, 
one  of  the  Justices  of  the  County  Court,  and  secured  a 


318  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

writ  of  replevin.  John  Claypoole,  apparently  restored 
to  health,  was  still  Sheriff.  He  saw  a  writ  to  deliver 
to  Adams,  upon  his  giving  security  to  abide  the  action 
of  the  County  Court,  goods  in  the  hands  of  Robert 
Webb,  gentleman,  without  any  hint  of  the  matter  being 
connected  with  the  Admiralty.  So  the  Sheriff  took  se- 
curity, and  when  Webb,  who  had  not  the  use  of  his 
limbs,  had  gone  to  the  King's  store  by  the  water  side, 
and  unlocked  it,  the  Under  Sheriff  and  his  bailiff  seized 
and  disarmed  Webb,  exhibited  the  replevin,  and  carried 
away  the  goods,  which  were  then  delivered  to  Adams. 
Webb  making  complaint,  Markham  issued  a  warrant 
to  the  Sheriff  to  take  back  the  goods,  and  keep  them  in 
his  custody  until  further  order  or  trial  in  such  court 
as  the  informer  should  see  fit.  The  Sheriff's  deputy 
was  delayed  in  getting  the  goods,  and  Webb  started 
after  Col.  Quary,  whom  he  found  at  New  Castle,  and 
there  drew  up  a  narrative  of  the  affair,  which  Quary 
enclosed  in  a  letter  to  England,  commenting  fully  upon 
it,  and  with  reflections  upon  Markham. 

We  can  readily  understand  how  the  sentiments  of 
the  officials  in  London  rose  to  something  like  indigna- 
tion, as  they  heard  that  a  colonial  Justice  of  the  Peace 
had  sent  away  the  property  seized  by  a  Court  of  high 
prerogative,  and  was  calling  the  question  before  him- 
self— whom  Penn  styled  a  "macaronic  judge"—  and 
two  or  three  others  about  as  skilled  in  law.  Had  it  been 
known  to  the  "big  wigs"  that  this  local  Justice  was 
by  profession  a  tailor,  the  thing  would  have  seemed  to 
them  particularly  preposterous.  We,  however,  who 
know  that  Quary,  the  sole  Judge  in  Admiralty,  was 
also  a  layman,  a  merchant  by  occupation,  do  not  think 
him  fitter  to  decide  than  those  who  composed  the 
County  Court :  but  the  precedent  would  be  bad  in  the 
near  future,  when  the  Crown  could  employ  a  learned 
jurist  in  Quary 's  place. 

Yet  worse  was  to  come :  to  injury  to  Admiralty  juris- 


Failure  in  Government.  319 

diction  was  to  be  added  insult  to  the  King,  carrying  to 
an  unnecessary  extreme  the  Quaker  disregard  of 
worldly  pomp  and  rank.  When  the  County  Court,  con- 
sisting of  Morris,  Shippen,  Richardson,  and  James 
Fox,  heard  the  case  of  replevin  by  Adams  against 
Webb,  the  latter  produced  in  his  defence  the  royal  let- 
ters patent  under  the  seal  of  the  High  Court  of  Ad- 
miralty and  the  Judge's  warrant  for  the  seizure.  The 
patent  having  a  picture  of  the  King  at  its  head  and  the 
seal  pendent  in  a  tin  case,  David  Lloyd,  who  had  ad- 
vised the  granting  of  the  replevin,  and  was  appearing 
as  counsel  for  Adams,  took  the  document  in  his  hand, 
and,  exposing  it  contemptously  before  those  in  the  court, 
exclaimed:  "What  is  this?  Do  you  think  to  scare  us 
with  a  great  box  and  a  little  baby?  Tis  true,  fine  pic- 
tures please  children ;  but  we  are  not  to  be  frightened 
at  such  a  rate."  This  is  the  way  Quary  quotes  the 
words:  Webb  swore  to  exclamations  of  similar  pur- 
port. To  be  sure,  the  context  may  have  qualified  or 
counteracted  them.  The  rest  of  the  speech  is  not  given, 
but  it  reflected  strongly  upon  Admiralty  procedure. 
Ridicule  of  the  King's  picture  in  public,  and  acqui- 
escence in  it  by  those  holding  court, — the  Judges  ap- 
pear to  have  failed  to  stop  or  rebuke  Lloyd, — were  not 
mere  matters  of  bad  taste.  The  governments  of  this 
world,  even  modern  republics  in  relation  to  the  flag,  en- 
force the  principle  that  the  honor  or  dishonor  shown  to 
the  image  or  emblem  is  honor  or  dishonor  to  what  it  rep- 
resents. There  was  no  strength  as  far  as  the  Quakers 
were  concerned  in  the  inference  of  the  Crown  officials, 
that  those  who  insulted  the  King's  picture  would  treat 
despitefully  his  person,  except  that  the  Quakers  would 
not  raise  their  hats,  or  make  a  bow  to  him:  but  by  people 
who  fought,  such  dishonorings  were  incidents  of  a  revo- 
lution. 

The  Judges  who  heard  Lloyd's  speech,  seeing  the 
importance  of  the  case,  ordered  a  continuance  until  the 


320  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

next  term.  We  learn  from  Quary's  letter  of  Oct.  20 
that  when  Markham  spoke  to  the  Provincial  Council 
in  regard  to  the  matter, — this  was  in  September, — 
Halliwell  and  Donnaldson  proposed  that  the  Judges  be 
superseded,  but  that  Lloyd  closed  the  debate  by  declar- 
ing that  all  who  encouraged  or  promoted  the  setting  up 
of  Admiralty  courts  were  greater  enemies  to  the  rights 
and  liberties  of  the  people  than  those  who  promoted 
ship  money  in  the  time  of  Charles  I.  The  Council  de- 
clared that  the  Governor  was  not  responsible  for  the 
act  of  Justice  Morris.  On  7mo.  27,  Shippen  being  away 
on  a  visit  to  New  England,  Morris,  Richardson,  and 
Fox  wrote  to  the  Lieutenant-Governor  and  Council  that 
they  considered  a  replevin  as  a  right  of  the  King's  sub- 
ject, whenever  any  goods  or  cattle  were  taken  or  dis- 
trained. Moreover,  the  Judges  suggested  that  it  was 
as  proper  for  the  Sheriff  to  take  security  for  the  pro- 
duction of  the  goods  as  for  them  to  remain  in  the  hands 
of  "Webb,  whom  the  Judges  did  not  know  to  be  a  proper 
officer  to  keep  them,  and  who  had  given  no  bonds  to  the 
Provincial  government.  Advice  was  taken  how  the 
matter  should  be  decided. 

During  this  episode,  a  French  pirate  sent  fifty  men 
ashore  at  Lewes,  and  plundered  every  house  in  the 
town,  and  caused  an  alarm  not  confined  to  the  Bay. 
Markham,  left  by  his  Councillors  to  Penn's  powers  as 
a  Captain-General,  and  obtaining  an  expression  that 
any  expense  should  be  defrayed  by  a  tax,  had  drums 
beaten  for  volunteers.  What  numbers  enrolled,  we  do 
not  know :  but  no  vessel  could  be  found  to  go  to  fight  the 
pirate,  as  Markham  refused  to  promise  any  share  of 
booty.  The  pirate,  after  getting  provisions  by  overhaul- 
ing a  ship  bringing  passengers  from  Holland,  made  off, 
to  avoid  being  caught  by  the  war  vessel  at  New  York. 
The  captain  of  the  war  vessel,  in  view  of  orders  to  go 
to  England,  refused  to  hunt  for  the  pirate. 

There  could  be  no  expectation  that  the  English  gov- 


Failure  in  Government.  321 

eminent,  after  hearing  of  Lloyd's  antics,  would  allow 
him  to  retain  any  offce,  and  the  operation  of  the  ju- 
dicial machinery  of  the  empire  seemed  to  require  the 
elimination  of  such  an  eccentric  as  Justice  Morris ;  but 
it  became  in  the  minds  of  the  officials  in  London  im- 
perative that,  in  the  first  place,  Markham  be  removed, 
although  not  an  actor  in  the  more  intolerable  proceed- 
ings. His  negligence,  although  excusable  by  reason  of 
physical  disability  and  by  lack  of  ways  and  means,  his 
complacency,  and  his  want  of  influence  over  the  legis- 
lature and  judiciary  had  shown  him  unfit  to  preside 
over  a  colony.  Penn  had  no  man  of  capacity  who 
could  be  put  in  Markham 's  place,  Quakers  being  out  of 
the  question,  and  difficulties  arising  from  the  matter  of 
salary,  royal  approbation,  bonds,  &ct.  Feeling,  more- 
over, that  he  himself  could  manage  the  stiff-necked  free- 
men better  than  any  possible  envoy,  Penn  decided  to  go 
without  further  procrastination  to  Pennsylvania,  and 
rule  in  person.  This  solution  was  accepted  by  the 
English  government.  The  patient  and  slowly  moving 
officials  could  hope  that  a  new  order  of  things  would 
be  started  at  the  end  of  the  months  that  must  be  allowed 
for  him  to  pack  up,  and  make  the  voyage.  The  events 
in  America  during  most  of  the  year  1699  fall  therefore 
within  the  term  of  Markham 's  administration. 

In  1699,  Pemberton  went  back  into  the  Council  in 
place  of  Growdon,  and  Pusey  in  place  of  Simcock,  and 
Richard  Willson  became  a  member  with  Rodney  for 
Kent;  but,  the  people  of  New  Castle  County  having 
failed  at  the  regular  election  to  make  any  choice,  and  re- 
fused at  a  special  election  to  do  so,  a  law  was  passed, 
Blunston  being  Speaker,  ordering  in  such  cases  a  fine 
of  1001.  to  be  imposed  upon  a  county,  to  be  collected 
by  distraint  and  sale  from  any  four  or  more  of  the  in- 
habitants, and  to  become  a  county  charge  for  their  re- 
imbursement, and  also  a  fine  of  50Z.  upon  a  Sheriff  for 
neglecting  his  duty  in  regard  to  an  election,  and  a  fine 

21 


322  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

of  20s.  per  diem  on  any  elected  Councillor  or  Assembly- 
man absenting  himself ;  and  there  was  also  a  provision 
that  on  neglect  or  refusal  of  the  counties  to  elect,  or  the 
absence  of  those  chosen,  such  members  of  Council  or 
Assembly  as  met  the  Governor  might  act.  A  tax  at  the 
same  rate  as  that  of  1696  was  voted  to  pay,  first,  the 
balance  still  due  on  former  appropriations  or  any  by 
that  Assembly  to  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  and,  second, 
the  necessary  charges  of  government,  as  the  Gover- 
nor and  Council  might  appoint. 

The  English  government  had  desired  the  various 
colonies  to  pass  an  act  relating  to  piracy  upon  the 
model  of  that  passed  some  years  before  in  Jamaica. 
Pennsylvania  neglected  the  matter  until  this  session, 
and  then  passed  an  act  providing  that  treasons,  felon- 
ies, piracies,  robberies,  murders,  or  confederacies  at 
sea  or  in  harbor,  creek,  or  bay  where  the  Admiral  had 
jurisdiction  should  be  tried  as  if  committed  on  land,  and 
also  authorizing  the  appointment  of  three  persons  by 
the  Governor  and  Council,  to  assist  the  Admiralty 
Judge  or  such  persons  in  his  absence  as  the  Governor 
and  Council  should  name,  a  quorum  of  which  persons 
to  have  the  powers  given  to  commissioners  under  the 
great  seal  of  England  by  statute  of  28  Hen.  VIII.  This 
Pennsylvania  act  made  punishable  as  accessories  or 
confederates  all  persons  entertaining,  concealing,  &ct. 
pirates,  and  not  endeavoring  to  have  them  appre- 
hended, and  also  imposed  a  fine  of  5Z.  on  any  person 
refusing  to  obey  an  order  to  assist  an  officer  in  seizing 
a  pirate,  and  a  fine  of  20Z.  on  any  Justice,  Sheriff,  con- 
stable, or  other  officer  neglecting  his  duty.  Owing  to 
differences  in  phraseology  and  otherwise  from  the 
Jamaica  act,  the  delay  in  the  appointment  of  those  to 
hold  court,  and  the  risks  to  be  run  in  punishing  cap- 
itally upon  testimony  or  verdict  given  without  oath, 
Quary  wrote  that  the  law  was  impracticable  and  a 
mere  pretence.    The  latter  word  was  unfair. 


Failure  in  Government.  323 

After  the  act  was  passed,  a  brigantine  at  New  Castle, 
richly  laden  for  England,  was,  the  night  before  intended 
departure,  seized  and  carried  off  by  fourteen  of  the 
crew,  putting  ashore  the  remaining  four,  who  would 
not  join  them.  Numerous  inhabitants  of  New  Castle 
tried  to  make  capital  out  of  this  in  a  petition  to  the 
Lieutenant-Governor  and  Council,  presented  on  August 
9,  asking  for  protection,  and  complaining  that  there  was 
neither  fort,  castle,  or  breastwork,  nor  militia,  arms,  or 
ammunition.  The  five  Councillors  who  heard  this,  all 
Quakers,  had  the  best  of  the  argument,  insincere  as  they 
were:  they  pointed  out  that  the  forts  of  Virginia  and 
Maryland  were  not  much  more  formidable  than  the 
fort  at  New  Castle  had  been ;  if  that  was  decayed,  it  was 
the  inhabitants'  fault;  it  would  be  more  dangerous  to 
build  forts,  if  the  people  would  not  hold  them,  than  to 
have  none ;  as  for  a  militia,  the  petitioners  should  have 
proposed  it  to  the  Assembly,  instead  of  neglecting  their 
duty  to  choose  Assemblymen. 

Captain  Kidd  is  the  English  pirate  whose  name  has 
survived  as  a  household  word.  His  bloodthirstiness 
has  been  exaggerated  in  popular  song.  The  deliberate 
slaughter  of  prisoners  was  not  so  common  with  the 
English  or  French  plunderers  of  ships.  The  murder 
of  which  Kidd  was  convicted  was  of  one  of  his  crew  in 
an  altercation,  and  may  have  been  in  fear  of  mutiny. 
William  Kidd  had  distinguished  himself  as  captain  of 
a  privateer  against  the  French  in  the  West  Indies,  be- 
fore he  was  placed  in  command  of  a  galley  fitted  out  by 
the  Earl  of  Bellomont  and  others,  to  sail  under  two 
royal  commissions,  one  being  to  take  the  enemy's  ves- 
sels as  prizes,  and  the  other  to  arrest  pirates,  and 
bring  them  for  trial,  and  seize  the  goods  in  their  posses- 
sion. Those  who  fitted  him  out,  were  to  share  in  the 
profits  of  the  booty.  One  of  these  partners  of  Kidd 
was  Somers,  the  Lord  Keeper  of  the  Great  Seal  of 
England,  whose  joining  in  such  an  agreement  was  the 


324  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

ground  of  one  of  the  charges  in  the  unsuccessful  im- 
peachment of  him.  Kidd  sailed  from  Plymouth, 
England,  in  May,  1696,  and,  coming  to  New  York,  and 
offering  no  pay  but  a  share  in  profits,  increased  his 
crew,  and  thence,  in  September,  went  to  attack  pirates 
at  Madagascar.  Finding  none  there  or  off  Malabar,  he 
was  pretty  much  necessitated  to  plunder,  to  provide 
for  his  men.  So  great  were  their  depredations,  real 
and  reported,  that  in  less  than  two  years  the  English 
government  issued,  on  Dec.  8,  1698,  a  proclamation 
offering  pardon  to  all  guilty  of  piracy  in  certain  waters 
who  should  surrender  themselves  before  April  30,  1699, 
except  Eadd  and  Every. 

Most  of  Kidd's  men  had  retired  from  his  service 
after  his  chief  captures.  A  large  number,  bringing 
considerable  possessions,  took  passage  on  a  vessel 
under  Captain  Shelley,  sent  out  by  New  York  mer- 
chants to  trade  with  Madagascar,  in  reality  with  the 
pirates  there.  On  May  29,  Shelley,  with  his  well  laden 
ship,  arrived  in  Delaware  Bay,  and,  having  started  a 
few  of  these  passengers  to  go  where  they  pleased  in  a 
sloop,  carried  to  the  western  shore  twenty  others,  and 
to  Cape  May  fourteen  or  sixteen.  Quary  managed  to 
have  a  number  captured.  Two,  John  Eldridge  and 
Simon  Arnold,  were  taken  on  the  Kiver  with  chests  con- 
taining coral,  amber,  and  manufactured  Eastern  goods, 
Arabian  and  Christian  gold,  and  about  7800  Eix  dol- 
lars. These  men,  Quary  put  into  the  jail  at  Burlington, 
New  Jersey,  as  a  more  secure  hold  than  that  in  Phila- 
delphia. The  Pennsylvania  Council  deemed  illegal 
and  insulting  his  action  in  sending  outside  for  confine- 
ment those  whom  he  or  his  deputy  Snead  had  arrested 
within  Penn's  jurisdiction.  Upon  Quary 's  discovering 
that  Kobert  Bradinham  (called  Brandingham  in  the 
Minutes  of  Council),  who  had  been  Kidd's  surgeon,  and 
William  Stanton,  also  of  Kidd's  company,  were  in 
Philadelphia,   Markham   gave   Quary  two   constables. 


Failure  in  Government.  325 

who  arrested  those  two.  Markham  seized  what  could 
be  found  of  their  money  and  goods,  rejecting  Quary's 
claim  to  have  the  same  taken  into  the  Admiralty's 
custody.  Markham  refused  to  press  a  vessel  into  ser- 
vice, and  to  give  Quary  forty  men  to  capture  Shelley's 
ship,  anchored  near  Cape  Henlopen.  Governor  Basse 
of  the  Jerseys  had  a  sloop  manned,  and  with  it  secured 
in  the  lower  part  of  the  Bay  four  of  those  who  had 
landed  at  Cape  May.  Three  of  the  four  surrendered 
themselves.  The  four  confessed,  but  all  their  goods 
had  been  sent  away.  All  of  the  six  who  thus  came  into 
West  Jersey  custody  were  speedily  admitted  to  bail  by 
Quaker  Justices  there.  Arnold's  name  does  not  appear 
in  subsequent  papers  examined. 

Kidd  sailed  back  to  North  America,  secreting  most 
of  his  treasure  on  its  shores  or  on  the  way  thither,  hop- 
ing that  some  quibble  or  bribe  or  the  friendship  of  Lord 
Bellomont  would  secure  immunity  from  punishment. 
Making  for  New  York  or  New  England,  Kidd  in  a  sloop 
with  about  forty  men  and  much  booty,  came  within  the 
Capes  of  Delaware  Bay  in  June,  1699,  close  upon  the 
heels  of  Shelley,  the  sloop  being  supposed  to  be  one 
which  Basse  had  descried.  Kidd  remained  more  than 
ten  days.  He  sent  his  boats  ashore  every  day,  and  was 
supplied  with  what  he  needed  by  the  old  pirates  and 
other  inhabitants  at  Whorekills,  some  going  constantly 
aboard  Kidd's  sloop,  and  dealing  with  him,  bringing 
ashore  muslins  and  other  East  Indian  goods.  It  is  not 
likely  that  he  trusted  such  people  sufficiently  to  bury 
anything  in  the  vicinity.  Getting  into  communication 
with  Lord  Bellomont,  Kidd  received  from  the  latter  a 
promise  of  safety,  if  innocence  should  be  shown,  and 
was  thus  induced  to  land  at  Boston,  where  Bellomont 
was;  but  Bellomont,  smarting  under  the  imputation 
that  he  had  expected  Kidd  to  turn  pirate,  and  failing 
to  get  information  where  the  treasure  had  been  left, 
and  fearing  that  Kidd  would  slip  away,  put  Kidd  in 


326  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

jail,  and  then  sent  him  with  others  accused  of  piracy  to 
England. 

Bradinham  and  Stanton  were  not  admitted  to  bail, 
but  remained  in  the  custody  of  Sheriff  Claypoole  afore- 
said, who  on  hot  days  allowed  them  to  walk  in  the 
streets  with  a  keeper.  This  being  criticized,  the 
Sheriff,  on  August  8,  was  told  to  keep  them  close  pris- 
oners. On  December  22,  Bradinham  complained  in 
a  petition  that  he  was  confined  in  a  low  room  without 
fire,  and  for  want  of  money  to  support  him,  and  asked 
for  a  warmer  room  and  a  little  of  his  own  money  in  the 
hands  of  Markham,  who  had  just  been  superseded: 
Markham  was  thereupon  ordered  to  allow  12s.  a  week 
for  Bradinham 's  subsistence;  but  Bradinham,  as 
will  be  seen,  had  money  in  concealment,  in  the  hands  of 
his  friends.  Stanton  escaped,  probably  after  Penn  ar- 
rived. Outlawry  was  proclaimed,  and  probably  it  was 
for  this  escape  that  Penn  turned  the  Sheriff  out  of 
office.  Claussen  disappears  from  notice,  probably  pro- 
ducing the  all-important  record  of  his  acquittal. 

The  narration  of  the  secular  affairs  of  the  Province 
and  Territories  will  now  be  suspended,  leaving  the 
pirates  in  their  fear  of  a  certain  kind  of  suspension; 
and  the  contemporary  introduction  or  establishment 
of  certain  non-Quaker  religious  bodies  and  something 
of  their  subsequent  history,  will  be  set  forth  in  a  chap- 
ter bearing  the  name  of  the  denomination  long  the  most 
important. 


CHAPTER   XL 

The  Church  of  England. 

Clause  in  Penn's  patent— The  Non-Jurors— Bp. 
Compton— Starting  of  Christ  Church,  Philadel- 
phia— Union  congregation  of  Baptists  and  others 
at  "Barbados  store"— Separation  therefrom  of  the 
First  Presbyterian  Church  of  Philadelphia- 
Ministers  at  Christ  Church— Services  elsewhere 
—George  Keith's  career  after  taking  orders— 
Eev.  John  Talbot— Assistance  from  Swedish  min- 
isters—Church edifices— Further  history  of  Bap- 
tists—Further history  of  Presbyterians— Conse- 
cration of  Welton  and  Talbot  as  bishops— Their 
subsequent  course — Powers  conferred  on  Bp.  Gib- 
son— Various  country  churches — Enlargement  of 
Christ  Church— Eev.  George  Whitefield— Naza- 
reth, Penna.,  and  the  Philadelphia  building  with 
free  school  project— Hi  story  of  Christ  Church 
continued— Calvinistic  Methodists  in  England 
and  Wales  organized— Whitefield's  subsequent 
visits  to  Pennsylvania. 

Probably  from  the  time  that  the  English  took  pos- 
session of  the  town  of  New  Castle,  in  October,  1664, 
stipulating  that  all  the  conquered  should  as  formerly 
enjoy  the  liberty  of  their  conscience  in  Church  disci- 
pline, there  was  always  some  person  on  the  western 
shore  of  Delaware  River  or  Bay  who  acknowledged 
belonging  to  the  Church  of  England ;  and  probably  there 
were  very  soon  quite  a  number.  Except  when  the  con- 
trary is  known,  the  officers  appointed  by  the  Crown 
may  be  assumed  to  have  been  Conformists  at  home, 
and  even  if  not  zealous,  yet  ready  to  enroll  themselves 


328  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

at  any  mission  which  the  English  authorities  would 
inaugurate.  The  possessions  in  America  were  sup- 
posed to  be  attached  to  the  see  of  London,  until  the 
Attorney-General  and  Solicitor-General  of  England 
gave  the  opinion,  in  1725  or  1726,  that  ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction  over  America  did  not  belong  to  any  bishop 
in  England,  but  was  solely  in  the  Crown  by  virtue  of 
the  King's  supreme  headship.  Rev.  John  Yeo  appears 
to  have  been  the  first  clergyman  of  the  Church  who  as 
such  officiated  in  Pennsylvania  or  Delaware,  he  coming 
from  Maryland  in  December,  1677,  with  his  letters  of 
ordination  and  his  license  from  the  Bishop  of  London, 
and  holding  services  for  some  months  during  the  fol- 
lowing year.  For  about  eighteen  years  after  this,  if 
there  was,  indeed,  any  Anglican  presbyter  in  the  re- 
gion,— Yeo  was  in  Maryland  about  1683, — there  ap- 
pears to  have  been  no  public  use  of  the  Anglican  liturgy 
in  Pennsylvania  or  Delaware,  except  possibly  an  iso- 
lated ceremony.  It  is  probable  that  such  non-Quakers 
as  were  desirous  of  attending  divine  worship,  or  had 
occasion,  for  instance  a  wedding  or  a  baptism,  for  a 
clergyman,  accepted  the  ministrations  of  Swedes,  in- 
stead of  going  or  sending  to  another  colony.  The 
Charter  to  Penn  contained  a  requirement,  however, 
that  any  preacher  or  preachers  approved  of  by  the 
Bishop  of  London  should  be  allowed  to  reside  in  the 
province  whenever  twenty  inhabitants  expressed  a  de- 
sire to  the  Bishop  that  such  be  sent.  This  clause  was 
inserted  at  the  request  of  Dr.  Compton,  Bishop  of 
London  at  that  time.  After  the  adoption  of  the  Charter, 
he  was  intrusted  by  his  fellows  of  the  Committee  for 
Trade  and  Plantations  with  the  preparation  of  a  bill 
for  establishing  the  Protestant  Church  in  Pennsyl- 
vania. Penn  was  opposed  to  anything  like  an  estab- 
lishment, and  the  measure  came  to  naught.  Penn  says 
in  a  letter  of  1700  (Penna.  Archives,  1st  Series,  Vol.  I, 
p.  141) :    "The  Bp.  of  London  at  the  passing  of  my 


The  Church  of  England.  329 

pat*,  did  what  he  could  to  get  savings  for  the  church" — 
perhaps  the  probate  of  wills  &ct.,  which  was  possessed 
by  the  bishops  in  England,  and  was  at  one  time  thought 
of  as  an  endowment  for  a  mission  in  America, — "but," 
he  adds,  "was  opposed  by  the  Earl  of  Radnor  the 
PresS ' '  As  to  the  meaning  of  the  clause  in  the  Charter 
in  regard  to  the  selection  of  the  minister,  the  learned 
canonist,  Rt.  Rev.  Dr.  Edmund  Gibson,  Bishop  of  Lon- 
don from  1723  to  1748,  wrote  in  1738,  that  he  did  not 
pretend  to  any  more  right  than  that  of  licensing  the 
person  who  was  to  be  minister,  intimating  that  he  was 
to  be  nominated  by  the  inhabitants  either  as  individ- 
uals, or  representing  as  vestrymen  the  individuals; 
and  we  find  in  most  cases  when  the  Bishop  of  London 
picked  out  the  person  to  be  licensed,  that  he  had  been 
requested  to  do  so,  it  being  generally  hard  for  the  people 
to  find  a  minister,  and  when  Bp.  Gibson  in  1742,  after 
failure  to  receive  a  unanimous  recommendation  from 
the  vestry  of  Christ  Church,  Philadelphia,  of  anybody 
to  be  minister  there,  issued  a  license  to  Rev.  Robert 
Jenney,  both  the  latter  and  the  Bishop  explained  that 
it  was  not  an  appointment  but  a  recommendation  or 
approbation  conditional  upon  the  vestry  accepting  him. 
From  the  Revolution  of  1688  down  to  the  close  of 
George  I's  reign,  the  embracing  of  opportunities  for 
services  by  Anglican  clergymen  was  interfered  with  by 
the  peril  of  countenancing  Non-Jurors,  i.e.  those  who 
had  refused  to  swear  allegiance  to  the  new  sovereigns. 
Sancroft,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  the  other 
bishops  deprived  of  their  sees  for  such  contumacy  in 
William  and  Mary's  time,  had  many  followers  in  the 
large  body  of  persons  then  having  ecclesiastical  dig- 
nity, benefice,  or  promotion,  and,  similarly,  when  oaths 
were  required  for  further  alienation  of  the  Crown  from 
James  II 's  son,  a  number  in  a  later  generation  of 
clergymen  sacrificed  their  livings.  Men  required  for 
such  reasons  to  leave  home  were  now  and  then  the  only 


330  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Anglican  priests  ready  for  employment  on  the  Dela- 
ware. The  " Jacobites,"  as  those  were  called  who  be- 
lieved James  II  or  his  son  the  lawful  sovereign,  omitted 
the  Christian  name  of  the  King  from  the  prayers:  so 
did  the  whole  Scottish  Episcopal  Church  down  to  the 
time  when  Seabury  was  consecrated  Bishop  of  Con- 
necticut; and,  Seabury 's  consecrators  having  recom- 
mended such  omission  to  him,  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  in  the  United  States  of  America  to-day,  in  pray- 
ing for  the  President  of  the  United  States,  does  not 
give  his  name. 

No  question,  however,  as  to  who  was  Bishop  of  Lon- 
don troubled  the  Anglican  Churchmen  in  the  reign  of 
William  or  of  Anne.  The  Rt.  Rev.  Dr.  Henry  Compton, 
perhaps  best  remembered  as  the  builder  of  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral,  and  perhaps  of  really  great  influence  on  the 
course  of  history  through  his  instruction  and  religious 
guidance  of  the  Princesses  Mary  and  Anne,  who  both 
ascended  the  throne,  had,  in  1675,  been  translated  from 
the  see  of  Oxford  to  that  of  London,  had  been  sus- 
pended and  soon  restored  by  James  II,  had  taken  an 
active  part  in  the  movement  against  James,  even  ap- 
pearing at  the  head  of  a  troop  of  horse,  when  war  was 
breaking  out,  and  had  crowned  William  and  Mary  in 
Westminster  Abbey.  He  continued  Bishop  of  London 
until  his  death  in  1713.  Although  rather  a  military 
prelate,  son  of  an  earl  who  had  fallen  in  battle  for 
Charles  I,  and  himself,  in  his  youth,  a  pikeman  to  aid 
the  cause  of  Charles  II,  and,  before  studying  divinity, 
an  ensign,  he  was  devout,  benevolent,  and,  except  for 
his  violent  Protestantism  and  sincere  Orthodoxy,  tol- 
erant. He  was  faithful  to  his  charge,  whether  over  the 
colonies  or  in  England,  and  he  regretted  that  he  was 
unable  personally  to  visit  America,  and  he  favored  the 
proposal  that  America  have  a  bishop  residing  there. 
He  was  much  interested  in  the  Indians,  endeavoring 
to  further  their  conversion  to  Christianity,  as  well  as 


The  Church  of  England.  331 

being  solicitous,  as  has  been  mentioned  in  the  chapter 
on  the  Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the  Land,  that 
the  savage  natives  should  receive  payment  for  the  soil 
of  Pennsylvania.  He  secured  from  Charles  II  the  grant 
of  a  present  of  £20  to  each  chaplain  that  was  sent  to 
America  by  the  Bishop.  James  II 's  treasury  paid  to 
those  going  during  his  reign,  and,  after  discontinuance 
of  the  practice  in  William  and  Mary's  hard  times,  this 
Bishop  brought  about  a  revival  of  it.  Compton,  how- 
ever, was  not  desirous  of  the  extension  of  his  own 
Church  through  the  weakening  of  other  evangelical 
bodies  holding  the  great  principles  of  truth.  He  had  a 
grand  scheme  for  the  union  or  intercommunion  of  the 
Protestants  of  Europe.  He  was  particularly  unlikely 
to  encourage  proselyting  the  Swedes. 

Contemporaneously  with  the  yearly  efforts  to  estab- 
lish the  Church  of  England  in  Maryland,  Sir  Thomas 
Lawrence,  Bart.,  Secretary  of  that  Province,  and 
Francis  Nicholson,  its  Governor,  who  arrived  in  August 
1694,  interested  themselves  in  organizing  the  Church- 
men in  Pennsylvania.  The  latter  Churchmen  may  have 
sought  the  others'  aid,  or  may  have  first  been  stirred 
by  them,  or  one  of  the  Maryland  clergy  may  have 
broached  the  matter  to  those  two  officials  and  the 
Churchmen  of  Philadelphia.  In  a  letter  to  the  Com- 
mittee of  the  Privy  Council  for  Trade  dated  Nov.  15, 

1694,  and  another  dated  June  14,  1695,  Nicholson  asks 
them  to  hear  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence  on  the  subject. 
There  is  no  doubt  that  between  those  dates,  or,  more 
likely,  before  the  earlier  one,  the  movement  had  started 
in  Philadelphia  to  build  Christ  Church.  Some  slight 
progress  had  been  made,  before  the  rumor  discussed 
in  the  Provincial  Council  of  Pennsylvania  on  June  15, 

1695,  induced  the  Churchmen  in  the  capital  to  sign  a 
petition  to  the  King  to  be  allowed  the  free  exercise  of 
their  religion  and  arms  for  defence.  Eobert  Suder  in 
a  letter  to  Governor (Nicholson?),  dated  Nov. 


332  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

20,  1698,  printed  in  Bp.  Perry's  Historical  Collections 
relating  to  the  American  Colonial  Church,  Vol.  II — 
Pennsylvania,  says  that,  as  soon  as  the  Quaker  magis- 
trates heard  of  the  petition,  they  sent  a  constable  after 
Suder,  and,  on  his  appearing  before  them,  questioned 
him.  When  he  stated  what  the  petition  was  for, 
Shippen,  who  was  one  of  the  Judges,  said  to  the  others : 
"Now  they  have  discovered  themselves.  They  are 
bringing  the  priest  and  the  sword  amongst  us,  but  God 
forbid:  we  will  prevent  them;"  and  he  directed  the 
Attorney  to  read  the  law  making  it  an  offence  to  speak 
or  write  against  the  government.  Suder  said  that  he 
hoped  they  would  not  hinder  the  right  of  petition. 
They  arrested  attorney  Griffith  Jones,  on  suspicion  of 
having  written  the  paper,  and  bound  him  over  from 
session  to  session.  A  part  of  the  unoccupied  lot  of 
Quaker — or,  rather,  Keithian — Griffith  Jones,  the  mer- 
chant, was  chosen  as  a  site  for  a  house  of  worship ;  and 
Joshua  Carpenter,  brother  of  Samuel  Carpenter,  as 
trustee  to  take  title.  This  Griffith  Jones,  by  deed  of 
Nov.  15,  1695,  conveyed  the  site — nearly  all  of  the  pres- 
ent church  edifice  stands  on  it — to  Carpenter  on  a 
ground  rent  of  10Z.  silver  money  of  the  Province,  re- 
deemable within  15  years  for  150/.  Meanwhile,  on 
October  30,  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence  appeared  before  the 
Lords  of  the  Committee  for  Trade,  and  consideration 
was  given  to  his  memorial,  which  asked  that  Id.  per  I. 
on  side  trade  of  tobacco  in  Penn's  dominion  be  granted 
with  the  arrears  for  maintaining  two  Protestant  (mean- 
ing Church  of  England)  divines  to  be  sent  thither.  The 
matter  being  referred  to  the  Commissioners  of  the 
Treasury,  they  thought  that  the  better  method  would 
be  to  grant  a  salary  out  of  the  revenue,  and  this  the 
Lords  of  the  Committee  for  Trade,  on  Nov.  25,  agreed 
to  report  to  the  King,  but  it  was  several  years  before 
a  stipend  was  allowed,  and  this  was  for  one  minister 
only.     Meanwhile  and  afterwards,  through  this  reign 


The  Church  of  England.  333 

and  Anne's,  the  revived  present  of  £20  to  each  minister 
sent  to  the  colonies  was  given. 

The  "Case  of  the  Keithian  Meeting  House,"  pre- 
pared in  1730  (Penna.  Archives,  1st  Series,  Vol.  I,  p. 
285),  says  that  the  congregation  of  Christ  Church  had 
the  use  of  said  meeting-house,  and  the  sacraments 
were  administered  therein  according  to  the  Established 
Church  "for  some  years" — which  is  an  exaggeration, 
unless  Christ  Church  edifice  was  started  before  the  lot 
was  bought,  for  the  Case  adds  "until  the  church  (before 
begun)  was  finished."  With  the  help  of  money  con- 
tributed by  Governor  Nicholson,  as  is  acknowledged  in 
a  letter  to  him  of  Jany.  18,  1696-7,  Christ  Church  was 
finished  by  that  date.  The  signers  of  the  letter  prob- 
ably included  all  the  Churchmen  of  the  City  except 
Markham.  They  were,  as  printed  in  Perry's  Collec- 
tions: (Yeates  and  Grant  heading  2d  and  3d  columns) 
Francis  Jones  Robt.  Quary 

Saml.  Peres  Sam.  Holt 

Darby  Greene  Edw.  Bury 

Enoch  Hubord  Thos.  Stapleford. 

Thos.  Walter  John  White 

Thos.  Curtis  John  Gibbs 

Edwd.  Smout  Willm.  Grant 

Joshua  Carpenter  Thos.  Briscoll 

Wm.  Dyre  John  Herris 

Addam  Birch  John  Harrison 

John  Sibley  Thomas  Craven 

Robert  Gilham  Anth'y  Blany 

Jasper  Yeates  Charles  Sober 

Jarvis  Bywater  Robt.  Snead 

Thomas  Harris  Jeremiah  Price 

George  Fisher  Jeremiah  Hunt 

Fardinando  Dowarthy       Geo.  Thompson 
John  Willson  John  Moore. 

Very  few  of  these — perhaps  only  Yeates — had  ever 
been  Quakers.    Dyre  was  the  grandson  of  the  Quaker 


334  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

martyr  Mary  Dyer,  or  Dyre,  whose  husband  and  chil- 
dren appear  not  to  have  adopted  her  religion.  Com- 
parison of  the  list  with  certain  lists  of  sympathizers 
with  Keith  in  the  chapter  on  Religious  Dissension, 
shows  how  distinct  from  them  were  these  original 
Churchmen  of  Philadelphia,  and  that  the  accession  of 
Keithians  to  the  congregation  must  have  been  later. 
Apparently  while  the  Keithian  meeting-house  was  used, 
a  clergyman  was  secured,  pending  the  licensing  of  one 
by  the  Bishop  of  London.  The  name  of  this  clergyman 
is  not  known.  The  congregation  soon  dismissed  him. 
From  him,  Markham,  who  wrote  in  Ms  favor  to  the 
Bishop,  learned  that  there  were  several  persons  in  the 
town  in  a  cabal  against  Markham,  because  of  his  coun- 
tenancing Quakers  so  much.  This  is  mentioned  by 
Markham  in  a  letter  to  Penn  of  March  1,  1696-7. 

The  moral  condition  of  Penn's  dual  colony  at  this 
period,  as  shown  in  the  last  chapter,  called  for  a  mis- 
sionary ;  and  the  only  religion  presented  to  the  English- 
speaking  people  of  it  was  what  most  Christians  looked 
upon  as  queer,  the  largest  religious  denomination  hav- 
ing no  ceremonies  at  all  and  a  certain  self-sufficiency, 
rejecting  doctrines,  another  denomination  insisting 
upon  immersion,  and  refusing  to  baptize  infants,  and 
some  religionists  keeping  Saturday  instead  of  Sunday, 
and  some  practising  feet-washing.  Perry,  in  the  afore- 
said Collections,  prints  a  letter  sent  about  1698  to 
Markham,  not  from  ' '  Gov., ' '  as  Perry  describes  it,  but 
from  "Rev."  John  Danforth,  who  was  Congregational - 
ist  Pastor  at  Dorchester,  Massachusetts,  asking  that 
"beloved  brother"  Mr.  Benjamin  Woodbridge  be  re- 
ceived on  a  religious  mission,  "not  to  handle  such  points 
as  are  matters  of  controversies  among  Protestants." 
The  religion  of  New  England  outside  of  Rhode  Island 
was  Calvinistic,  and,  in  the  sense  that  elder  was  the  high- 
est rank  in  the  ministry,  Presbyterian,  but  in  the  con- 
gregational basis  of  Church  polity,  was  very  different 


The  Church  of  England.  335 

from  Scotch  Presbyterianism.  We  are  apt  to  be  misled 
by  the  loose  application  of  the  name  "Presbyterian"  to 
all  non-prelatists  except  Baptists  and  Quakers.  The  few- 
regular — as  distinguished  from  Keithian — Baptists 
in  Philadelphia,  with  one  or  two  others  aloof  from  the 
Church  of  England,  had  gathered  at  the  Barbados  store 
at  Second  and  Chestnut,  where,  from  about  April,  1695, 
the  Baptist  minister  from  Pennypack,  Rev.  John  Watts, 
is  said  to  have  preached  every  other  Sunday,  but  pre- 
ceding him,  or  sometimes  in  his  place,  was  probably  the 
head  of  the  Baptists  at  Cohansey,  New  Jersey,  Rev. 
Thomas  Killingworth,  spoken  of  in  the  chapter  on  Re- 
ligious Dissension.  On  the  alternate  Sundays,  as  the 
Baptists  soon  afterwards  stated,  any  "Presbyterian 
minister"  who  happened  to  come,  was  allowed  to 
preach  in  the  room  at  the  Barbados  store.  We  do  not 
know  whether  Woodbridge  did  so.  He  may  have 
brought  Rev.  Jedidiah  Andrews  to  Philadelphia.  In 
the  Spring  or  Summer  of  1698,  Andrews,  who  had  been 
licensed  to  preach  by  some  authority  in  Massachusetts, 
came  to  minister  to  those  described  as  Presbyterians. 
Their  claim  to  that  name  has  been  well  disputed  by 
Irving  Spence  in  his  Letters  on  the  Early  History  of 
the  Presbyterian  Churches  on  the  Peninsula,  addressed 
to  Rev.  Robert  M.  Laird,  printed  in  1838,  Spence  de- 
fining a  Presbyterian  as  one  who  believed  in  the  theory 
of  Church  government  adopted  by  the  General  As- 
sembly of  the  Scottish  Kirk  on  February  10,  1645. 
The  union  congregation  at  the  Barbados  store  became 
divided,  one  part  hearing  its  minister  in  the  morning, 
and  the  other  hearing  opposite  views  in  the  afternoon. 
Thus  was  started  what  has  received  the  name  of  the 
First  Presbyterian  Church  of  Philadelphia.  The  letter 
of  the  Baptists,  dated  8,  30,  1698,  after  the  others  had 
expressed  themselves  unwilling  to  join  in  worship  with 
them,  is  addressed  to  Mr.  Jedidiah  Andrews,  John 
Green,  Joshua  Story,  Samuel  Richards,  "and  the  rest 


336  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

of  those  of  Presbyterian  judgment  belonging  to  the 
meeting  in  Philadelphia."  The  answer,  dated  Nov.  3, 
asking  a  conference,  was  signed  by  Andrews,  Green, 
and  Richards,  and  also  by  David  Gifting,  Herbert  Corry, 
John  Van  Lear,  and  Daniel  Green.  We  have  thus  prob- 
ably the  names  of  nearly  all  the  male  adults  who  pro- 
nounced for  that  side.  Van  Lear  was  doubtless  a  Cal- 
vinistic  Dutchman.  In  due  time,  the  Budd  family  be- 
came Presbyterians,  the  chief  representatives  among 
them  of  the  Keithian  seceders  from  the  Society  of 
Friends.    John  Budd  became  an  elder. 

It  would  seem  that  the  Anglican  clergy  of  Maryland, 
although  they  did  not  pay,  nevertheless  sent  as  mis- 
sionaries, and  superintended,  the  two  or  more  clergy- 
men who  had  charge  of  Christ  Church  before  Portlock, 
if,  indeed,  the  one  who  first  had  charge  was  not  a  mere 
wanderer  or  visitor,  asked  to  officiate.  Perhaps  the 
licenses  to  these  men  were  for  doing  work  as  the  Mary- 
land clergy  should  arrange:  it  was  before  the  arrival 
of  a  Commissary  for  Maryland.  Rev.  John  Arrow- 
smith,  who,  as  schoolmaster  and  chaplain  on  the  way  to 
that  province,  had  an  order  for  the  King's  allowance  on 
Jany.  18,  1695-6,  was  in  charge  of  Christ  Church,  Phil- 
adelphia, and  its  school  at  the  beginning  of  1698,  but 
was  only  a  deacon,  writing  to  Governor  Nicholson  that 
some  of  the  congregation  were  desirous  of  receiving 
the  sacrament,  if  it  could  be  administered  at  Easter, 
and  that  Mr.  Sewell  (evidently  Rev.  Richard  Sewell  of 
Maryland)  had  promised  to  come  for  that  purpose. 

It  is  supposed  that  Rev.  Thomas  Clayton  was  the 
first  minister  appointed  for  Philadelphia  by  the  Bishop 
of  London.  Webster's  History  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  in  America  is  wrong  in  saying  that  Clayton 
had  been  rector  of  Crofton,  Yorkshire,  confusing  him 
possibly  with  the  Rev.  John  Clayton,  Rector  there  from 
1687  to  1697,  who  may  have  been  a  relative,  and  may 
have    employed    Thomas    Clayton    as    curate.      Two 


The  Church  of  England.  337 

Thomas  Claytons,  both  of  Christ  Church  College,  Cam- 
bridge, were  graduated  from  that  University,  one  as 
A.B.  in  1684  and  A.M.  in  1690,  the  other  as  A.B.  in  1690 
and  A.M.  in  1694.  The  younger  of  these  was  probably 
the  one  in  whom  we  are  interested,  and  who,  being  on 
his  way  to  Maryland — he  either  was  not  originally  sent 
to  Pennsylvania,  or  was  to  serve  there  under  the  Mary- 
land Commissary  or  clergy — had  order  for  the  King's 
allowance  on  Jany.  11,  1697-8,  and  arrived  in  Philadel- 
phia before  the  end  of  the  Summer.  He  started  a 
movement  for  Church  Unity,  writing  letters  to  the 
Baptists,  and  to  both  the  Keithians  and  the  Quakers 
who  had  disowned  Keith,  which  Quakers  Clayton  calls 
"Lloydians."  In  Bp.  Perry's  Collections,  that  name 
is  printed  "Hoytians,"  but  the  original  letters  have 
been  examined  for  this  present  work.  Clayton  asked 
for  each  of  the  three  sects  to  come  over  in  a  body,  but 
he  could  hardly  have  expected  those  as  aforesaid  desig- 
nated as  followers  of  Thomas  Lloyd  to  accept  such  an 
invitation.  Clayton  had  a  long  conference  with  some 
of  the  Keithians  the  night  before  a  great  meeting,  per- 
haps their  Yearly  Meeting,  and  had  hopes  of  something 
like  a  general  union,  which,  however,  were  frustrated 
the  next  day.  The  reply  of  the  Baptists  is  printed  in 
Edwards's  History:  but  Clayton  reports  on  9ber  29, 
1698,  that  there  was  a  considerable  party  among  them 
working  vigorously  for  union.  After  two  letters  from 
the  Lloydian  Quakers,  and  when  Clayton  was  engaged 
on  a  further  answer  to  them,  he  was,  for  some  reason, 
stopped  from  going  further  by  what  he  calls  an  "in- 
hibition from  my  brethren,"  apparently  some  of  the 
Anglican  clergy  of  Maryland.  To  the  Rev.  Jedidiah 
Andrews,  the  Presbyterian,  who  threatened  to  go  home 
during  the  coming  Spring,  and  whose  flock  could  in- 
crease only  by  accessions  from  Clayton's,  Clayton  made 
a  promise  to  confine  himself  to  his  own  people  so  long 
as  he  saw  himself  in  no  danger  of  losing  a  congrega- 

22 


338  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

gation.  Not  however  sufficiently  deferential  to  Mrs. 
Markham  and  her  daughter,  Clayton  lost  their  atten- 
dance, which  Andrews  gained.  Clayton,  however,  with 
the  assistance  of  Arrowsmith,  was  quite  successful  in 
building  up  a  congregation.  Isaac  Norris  writes  from 
Philadelphia,  7mo.  11.  1699:  "Thomas  Clayton,  min- 
ister of  the  Church  of  England,  died  at  Sassafras  in 
Maryland,  and  here  is  another  from  London  in  his 
room,  happened  to  come  very  opportunely." 

The  new-comer  was  Rev.  Edward  Portlock,  who  ap- 
pears to  have  been  previously  chaplain  in  the  English 
forces  serving  in  Flanders,  Penn  speaking  in  an  un- 
dated letter  to  Sir  Robert  Harley  of  "the  heat  of  a 
few  churchmen  headed  by  a  Flanders  camp  parson 
under  the  protection  of  the  Bishop  of  London,  who, 
having  got  a  few  together,"  made  it  their  business  to 
inveigh  against  the  Pennsylvania  government,  inveigh- 
iug  in  the  pulpit  against  Quaker  principles  and  such  of 
the  latter  as  concerned  the  State,  as  to  oaths  &ct.  Port- 
lock  seems  to  have  come  to  America  to  take  a  church  at 
Perth  Amboy,  but  he  called  himself  Minister  of  Christ 
Church,  Phila.,  in  his  receipt  to  Robert  Bradinham, 
dated  March  9,  1699,  in  12th  year  of  Wm.  III.  Port- 
lock  on  July  12,  1700,  wrote  that  in  four  years  the 
Church  of  England  had  grown  from  a  very  small  num- 
ber to  500  sober  and  devout  souls  in  and  about  the  city. 
Thomas  Story  in  his  Journal  mentions  the  circulation, 
which  he  says  was  by  "the  clergy"  of  the  colony  or  the 
neighbouring  colonies,  of  the  report  of  a  miracle  in 
Holland,  whereby  a  letter  had  been  unearthed  warning 
to  preparation  for  judgment,  and  telling  parents  to 
baptize  their  children.  The  account  of  this,  he  says, 
was  read  in  the  churches,  and  convinced  some  in  favor 
of  water  baptism.  It  is  not  remarkable  that  the  tale, 
whatever  its  source,  was  credited  in  an  age  when  Fox, 
Penn,  and  others  spoke  of  their  marvellous  experiences, 
Portlock  left  for  Maryland  before  Dec.  31,  1700,  but 


The  Church  of  England.  339 

appears  to  have  visited  Kent  County  afterwards. 
Penn  speaks  of  Portlock  before  this  in  the  pulpit  hypo- 
critically inveighing  against  him  for  leniency  to  pirates, 
when  Portlock  himself  was  intimate  with  Bradinham, 
Kidd's  surgeon,  and  actually  took  a  large  amount  of 
gold  from  Bradinham  on  deposit.  It  is  sorrowful  to 
see  that  there  was  often  more  politics  than  theology  in 
the  minds  of  adherents  of  the  Church  of  England  dur- 
ing the  period  of  this  history. 

This  chapter  will  not  speak  of  the  Church  as  a 
political  party,  but  will  deal  with  its  organization,  ex- 
tension, and  domestic  concerns.  Already  the  reader 
has  seen  the  clashing  of  the  interests  of  Quary  and 
Moore,  as  Crown  officials,  with  the  interests  of  William 
Penn,  and  later  will  find  what  feelings  prominent  men 
of  this  ecclesiastical  affiliation  had  towards  various 
measures  of  the  civil  government,  and  how,  with  the 
exception  of  the  Mennonites  and  certain  Germans,  all 
the  non-Quakers,  of  whom  the  Churchmen  were  in  vari- 
ous ways  the  most  important,  and  long  the  most  numer- 
ous, opposed  the  binding  of  the  public  with  the  peace 
principles  of  the  Society  of  Friends. 

Not  imbued  with  the  idea  of  heading  an  anti-Penn 
party,  however,  was  the  Bishop 's  appointee  or  licensee 
to  succeed  Clayton,  viz :  Rev.  Evan  Evans,  native,  it 
is  said,  of  Wales.  Order  was  issued  to  him  for  the 
royal  allowance  on  July  5,  1700,  and  he  arrived  in 
Philadelphia  before  November  1  following,  and  de- 
voted himself  not  only  to  the  care  of  the  Philadelphia 
congregation,  but  also  to  visiting  various  points  in  the 
country,  as  Chichester,  Chester,  and  Radnor  with  the 
district,  northwest  of  Radnor,  spoken  of  as  Mont- 
gomery, and  one  or  more  points  in  West  Jersey,  preach- 
ing sometimes  in  private  houses,  and  baptizing  in 
about  three  years  and  a  half  about  five  hundred  per- 
sons. Many  of  such  as  were  adults  had  been  brought 
up  as  Quakers. 


340  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Christ  Church,  Philadelphia,  had  adopted  before 
Dec.  31,  1700,  the  plan,  growing  into  use  in  England, 
of  choosing  a  ' '  select  vestry, ' '  instead  of  all  the  atten- 
dants or  all  the  parishioners  managing  affairs  at  meet- 
ings in  the  "vestry,"  or  vesting-room.  The  number  of 
selected  vestrymen,  which  in  most  churches  has  been 
twelve,  has  been  altered  for  Christ  Church  from  time 
to  time.  In  1717,  with  which  the  extant  minutes  begin, 
there  were  twelve  besides  the  two  wardens :  but  at  first, 
although  James  Logan  speaks  in  a  letter  as  if  the  gov- 
erning body  amounted  to  twenty,  which  would  corre- 
spond with  the  number  of  petitioners  specified  for 
toleration  in  the  royal  patent,  it  is  doubtful  if  attention 
was  paid  to  that,  in  view  of  the  religious  freedom  in 
Penn's  dominions,  and  it  seems  unlikely  that  the  signers 
of  the  following  letters  from  the  Vestry  were  a  decided 
minority.  The  first,  dated  Jany.  28,  1700-1,  was  signed 
by  Evans  the  Minister,  and  Robert  Quary,  Joshua 
Carpenter,  J.  Moore,  Charles  Sober,  Edwd.  Smout, 
and  Samll.  Holt:  the  second,  dated  Oct.  27,  1701,  was 
signed  by  Evans,  the  Minister,  John  Thomas,  the  clerk, 
and  by  Holt  and  Sober,  the  wardens,  and  by  Quary, 
Carpenter,  Moore,  William  Hall  (who  was  a  physi- 
cian), Edward  Smout,  John  Crapp,  and  Thomas  Tench 
(who  was  some  time  one  of  the  Council  in  Maryland). 

Following  King  William's  letters  under  the  privy 
seal  of  Jany.  31,  1701,  Queen  Anne,  under  the  privy 
seal,  issued  a  warrant,  dated  July  15  in  1st  year  of 
her  reign,  to  pay  £50  stg.  per  an.  to  "such  protestant 
minister  as  shall  be  residing  within  the  province  of 
Pennsylvania,"  and  £30  stg.  per  an.  "to  such  school- 
master there,"  out  of  the  duty  of  Id.  per  I.  upon 
tobacco  exported  thence  to  other  British  plantations  in 
America,  from  the  time  to  which  they  had  been  paid 
under  King  William's  letters,  or,  in  case  no  payment 
had  been  made,  then  from  the  date  of  residence,  and  to 
continue  during  her  pleasure. 


The  Church  of  England.  341 

George  Keith,  mentioned  in  a  previous  chapter,  was 
admitted  to  deacon's  orders  by  Bishop  Compton  on 
May  12,  1700.  In  the  following  year,  largely  through 
the  efforts  of  Rev.  Thomas  Bray,  D.D.,  who  had  spent 
a  short  time  in  Maryland  as  the  Bishop's  Commissary, 
the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in 
Foreign  Parts  was  incorporated  by  patent  dated  June 
16.  Keith  was  the  first  missionary  appointed  by  the 
Society,  and,  in  the  Spring  of  1702,  was  sent  to  America 
as  an  itinerant  to  investigate  the  opportunities,  and  to 
awaken  a  sentiment  for  religious  ministrations  by  the 
Church  of  England.  Thomas  Story's  Journal,  before 
quoted,  says  that  the  Bishop  of  London  was  unwilling 
to  ordain  as  priest  any  one  who  had  fluctuated  in 
opinion  like  Keith,  and  so  the  latter  came  over  unable  to 
administer  the  communion.  Contradicting  this  are  the 
words  of  that  Bishop's  recommendation  of  Keith  to 
Gov.  Nicholson  of  Virginia,  dated  Apr.  3,  1702:  "He 
is  in  the  full  Orders  of  our  Church,  so  that  you  may 
permit  him  to  preach  when  &  where  you  please  within 
your  Government"  (Virginia  Mag.  Hist.  &  Biog.,  Vol. 
XXIII,  p.  145).  With  Keith  was  Rev.  Patrick  Gordon, 
appointed  as  missionary  to  Jamaica  on  Long  Island, 
but  who  died  a  few  days  after  his  arrival  there.  Rev. 
John  Talbot,  formerly  Rector  of  Fretherne,  Gloucester- 
shire, but  at  this  time  Chaplain  of  the  man-of-war 
"Centurion,"  in  which  Keith  sailed,  joined  him  in  his 
travels,  which  extended  from  Piscataway  River  in  New 
England  to  Currituck,  North  Carolina.  They  arrived 
in  Philadelphia  on  Nov.  5, 1702,  and  preached  in  Christ 
Church  on  the  Sunday  following,  and  several  times 
afterwards,  at  intervals  between  visits  to  other  places, 
joining  Rev.  Evan  Evans  in  having  prayers  and  ser- 
mons every  day  during  the  Friends  Yearly  Meeting 
held  in  Philadelphia  in  September,  1703.  The  work  of 
the  two  itinerants  was  very  active  and  very  successful. 
They  brought  many  throughout  the  middle  provinces 


342  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

into  the  fold  of  the  Church.  They  saw  in  Penn's  do- 
minions, partly  as  the  result  of  Evans's  labors,  the 
establishment  of  congregations  at  Chester,  Frankford 
(the  church  since  called  Oxford)  in  Philadelphia 
County,  New  Castle,  and  Appoquinimy.  Talbot 
preached  on  Jany.  24,  1702-3,  the  first  sermon  in  the 
newly  finished  St.  Paul's  Church  at  Chester.  Rev. 
Henry  Nicolls,  a  Fellow  of  Jesus  College,  Oxford,  sent 
to  Chester  by  the  aforesaid  Society,  arrived  there  on 
Mch.  1,  1703-4,  and,  on  April  18,  a  vestry  consisting  of 
him  and  eleven  laymen  was  elected.  Keith  preached, 
on  Aug.  22,  the  first  sermon  in  the  newly  finished  St. 
Mary's  at  Burlington.  Keith's  last  sermon  in  Phila- 
delphia was  on  Sunday,  April  2,  1704,  after  which  he 
went  to  Virginia  to  take  passage  for  England.  If,  in- 
deed, he  had  not  been  previously  ordained  priest,  he 
must  have  been  in  the  course  of  a  year  following,  for, 
in  1705,  he  received  the  small  living  of  Edburton, 
Sussex,  which  he  held  until  his  death  in  1716.  For  a 
while,  at  least,  his  wife  had  remained  a  Friend ;  but  his 
daughters  turned  with  him.  He  appears  to  have  left 
no  son.  From  a  daughter  who  married  in  Virginia  was 
descended  George  Wythe,  a  Signer  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence.  Talbot  about  1705  settled  down  to 
the  charge  of  St.  Mary's,  Burlington. 

On  Aug.  14,  1706,  Evans  gave  Gov.  John  Seymour 
of  Maryland  a  receipt  for  the  old  great  seal  of  that 
Province,  promising  to  deliver  the  seal,  on  safe  arrival 
in  England,  to  Col.  Nathaniel  Blackiston,  Agent  of  the 
Province,  to  carry  to  the  Lords  for  Trade.  David 
Humphreys's  History  of  the  Society  for  the  Propaga- 
tion of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts,  printed  in  London 
in  1730,  speaks  of  Evans's  coming  to  London  upon 
private  concerns  in  1707.  Quary  had  represented  him 
as  too  friendly  to  his  namesake  John  Evans,  Penn's 
Deputy,  and  to  Penn,  and  to  the  Quakers.  Rev.  Mr. 
Evans  was  well  received,  and  came  back  about  the  be- 


The  Church  of  England.  343 

ginning  of  1709,  having  received  the  royal  order  of 
£20  on  Aug.  9,  1708,  and  bringing  silver  communion 
pieces  for  Christ  Church  from  Queen  Anne.  In  1711, 
the  church  building  was  considerably  enlarged,  the  con- 
gregation worshipping  for  some  weeks  in  the  Swedish 
church,  although  offered  the  use  of  the  Presbyterian 
(Dorr's  History  of  Christ  Church).  Evans  went  again 
to  England  about  1714,  and  appears  then  to  have  re- 
ceived the  degree  of  D.D.,  as  he  is  called  "Dr."  after- 
wards. He  returned  about  the  end  of  1716  (0.  S.), 
when,  in  addition  to  Christ  Church,  he  took  charge  of 
Eadnor  and  Oxford,  preaching  at  those  country  churches 
alternately  on  Thursdays.  Finding  the  work  too  much 
for  him,  he  retired  in  June,  1718,  to  accept  a  living  in 
Maryland.  Visiting  Philadelphia  in  October,  1721,  he 
read  prayers  and  preached  in  Christ  Church  on  Sun- 
day, the  8th,  in  the  morning.  At  the  afternoon  service, 
he  was  taken  with  an  apoplectic  fit,  and  sank  down 
immediately  in  the  desk,  and  was  carried  to  his  lodg- 
ing, where  he  remained  speechless  until  about  two 
o'clock  on  Wednesday,  when  he  died.  He  was  buried 
in  the  church  on  the  12th,  the  register  giving  also  the 
date  of  his  death  as  if  it  happened  on  Tuesday,  and 
his  age  as  sixty  years.  Rev.  John  Vicary  was  at  that 
time  the  Eector,  being  the  minister  license^  for  Christ 
Church  next  after  Evans,  and  serving  about  three 
years  from  Sep.  4,  1719,  and  dying  in  office. 

The  interest  of  Governor  Gookin  in  Church  affairs 
will  be  spoken  of  in  a  later  chapter.  His  successor, 
William  Keith,  who,  by  the  way,  was  not  a  near  rela- 
tion of  George  Keith,  at  first  did  much  to  facilitate  the 
preaching  of  the  Gospel  by  Anglican  clergymen,  tak- 
ing them  with  him  on  his  visits  to  certain  points.  As 
Gookin  had  been,  so  he  was  he  a  member  of  the  Vestry 
of  Christ  Church.  Keith  was  defeated  for  re-election 
after  one  year's  service,  because,  said  Peter  Evans,  he 


344  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

took  upon  him  to  overrule  the  other  members,  and  en- 
tirely deprived  them  of  their  just  freedom. 

With  the  Swedish  clergy,  the  Anglican  at  this  period 
in  Pennsylvania  were  in  full  communion.  Rev.  Andreas 
Rudman,  former  Pastor  of  Gloria  Dei  Church,  Wec- 
cacoe,  was  put  in  charge  of  the  congregation  at  Oxford 
in  1705  by  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the 
Gospel  aforesaid,  and,  after  Evans  left  for  England, 
served  Christ  Church,  dying  before  Evans's  return. 
Rev.  Andreas  Sandel,  Pastor  of  Gloria  Dei,  attended 
meetings  of  the  Anglican  clergy  in  1713  and  1715,  as 
well  as  being  present  at  the  dedication  or  opening  of 
the  present  edifice  of  Trinity  Church,  Oxford,  on  Nov. 
5, 1713,  and  the  laying  of  the  corner  stone  of  the  present 
edifice  of  St.  David's,  Radnor,  on  May  9,  1715  (see 
Penna.  Mag.,  Vol.  XXX).  Between  these  dates,  a 
church  edifice  for  St.  James 's,  Bristol,  was  finished  and 
opened  on  St.  James's  Day,  with  sermon  from  Rev. 
Francis  Phillips.  Of  that  unworthy  clergyman  some- 
thing will  be  said  in  connection  with  Lieut.  Gov. 
Gookin. 

The  offer  of  the  Presbyterian  edifice  to  Christ 
Church  congregation  recalls  our  attention  to  the  non- 
Quaker  religious  denominations  in  Pennsylvania  be- 
sides the  two  National  Churches.  The  dispute  before 
mentioned  between  the  Baptists  and  Presbyterians 
of  the  union  congregation  in  Philadelphia,  ended,  ac- 
cording to  the  Baptists '  story,  in  the  Presbyterians 
failing  to  keep  to  the  offer  to  hold  a  conference.  On 
the  second  Sunday  of  December  in  1698,  nine  Baptists, 
viz:  John  Holmes,  John  Farmer  and  wife,  Joseph 
Todd,  Rebecca  Woosencroft,  William  Silverstone, 
William  Elton  and  wife,  and  Mary  Shepherd  met  at 
the  Barbados  store,  and  "coalesced  into  a  church  for 
the  communion  of  saints,  having  Rev.  John  Watts  for 
their  assistance."  Of  these,  John  Farmer  and  wife 
were  from  the  congregation  of  Rev.  Hanserd  Knollys 


The  Church  of  England.  345 

in  London,  and  Joseph  Todd  and  Rebecca  Woosencroft 
were  from  that  at  Limmington,  Hampshire;  while  the 
others,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Holmes,  had 
been  immersed  by  Rev.  Thomas  Killingworth  after 
coming  to  America.  Shortly  after  this  "  coalescing, ' ' 
Thomas  Bibb  and  Nathaniel  Douglas  were  members  of 
the  Philadelphia  congregation.  The  Presbyterians 
contending  for  the  place  of  worship,  the  Baptists  aban- 
doned it  to  them,  and  went  to  Anthon}'-  Morris's  brew- 
house.  There  the  Baptists  remained  until  Mch.  15, 
1707,  and  then,  by  invitation  of  the  Keithians,  moved 
to  the  latter 's  building  in  2nd  street  below  Arch.  Hav- 
ing perfected  their  title  to  the  lot,  as  shown  in  the 
chapter  on  Religious  Dissension,  and  having  the  ad- 
joining lot,  formerly  owned  by  John  Holmes,  the  Bap- 
tists, in  1731,  replaced  the  wooden  structure  with  a 
brick  one,  used  until  1762,  when  they  built  a  larger 
edifice,  probably  partly  covering  both  lots.  In  the  said 
year  1707,  the  various  Baptist  congregations  of  Phila- 
delphia and  vicinity,  having,  it  is  thought,  previously 
had  annual  reunions,  formed,  or  gave  disciplinary 
power  to,  an  Association  composed  of  their  delegates. 
The  Baptists  were  reinforced  by  the  arrival  of  a  num- 
ber of  ministers  and  ruling  elders  from  South  Wales 
and  the  West  of  England  in  1710  and  afterwards.  Rev. 
Thomas  Selby,  an  Irish  minister,  who  came  to  the  Phila- 
delphia congregation,  was  excommunicated  by  the  Asso- 
ciation in  1712.  About  this  time,  all  the  ministers  of  the 
Association  had  accepted  the  rite  of  laying  on  of  hands. 
Terms  of  association  were  adopted  in  1742,  adding 
Articles  XXIII  and  XXXI  to  those  published  in  Lon- 
don by  one  hundred  congregations  in  1689,  and  called 
the  Century  Confession.  The  treatise  of  discipline  has 
been  "The  Glory  of  a  true  Church  and,  its  Discipline/' 
published  in  London  in  1697;  and  the  catechism  has 
been  that  published  in  London  in  1699. 

Contrary  to  the  threat,  or,  rather  expectation,  re- 


346  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

ported  by  Clayton,  the  Rev.  Jedidiah  Andrews  did  not 
leave  his  flock  in  the  Spring  of  1699,  nor,  in  fact,  until 
his  death  in  1747,  except  during  a  few  months  in  old 
age  by  suspension  for  "indiscretions,"  on  repentance 
for  which  he  was  restored.  There  is  mention  in  Rev. 
Dr.  Wm.  B.  Sprague's  Annals  of  the  American  Pulpit 
of  a  notion  held  by  some  that  Andrews  gave  up  the 
Independent  theory  in  1729;  but  his  support  of  the 
measures  of  Irish  Presbyterians,  and  other  facts  men- 
tioned by  Rev.  William  H.  Roberts,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  in  the 
Journal  of  the  Presbyterian  Historical  Society,  Vol.  V, 
No.  5,  are  inconsistent  with  his  clinging  to  Indepen- 
dency, or  Congregationalism,  so  late,  if  he  ever  clung 
to  it  after  leaving  New  England.  Moreover,  there  al- 
ways were  a  number  of  divines  in  New  England,  who 
wholly  or  largely  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  the  true 
scheme  of  Church  government  was  that  set  forth  in 
those  chapters  of  the  Westminster  Confession  which 
the  Synod  at  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  changed  in 
1648,  and  the  Rev.  Peter  Hobart,  Pastor  at  Andrews's 
native  town  in  Andrews's  childhood,  was  one  of  those 
called  Presbyterians  by  those  who  distinguished  such 
from  Congregationalists.  It  is  said  that  Andrews  was 
ordained  in  Philadelphia,  and  probably  in  1701,  when 
the  record  of  the  baptisms  performed  by  him  com- 
mences. Talbot  may  have  heard  of  this  ordination  by 
Apr.  24,  1702,  when  he  wrote:  "The  Presbyterians 
here  come  a  great  way  to  lay  hands  on  one  another, 
.  .  .  In  Philadelphia  one  pretends  to  be  a  Presby- 
terian." This  seems  to  mean  claiming  the  office  of 
presbyter  by  Apostolic  succession  through  presbyters. 
The  Virginia  shores  of  the  Chesapeake  and  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  New  York  were  in  those  days  "a  great 
way"  off  from  Philadelphia,  and  nobody  who  thought 
the  congregation  competent  to  ordain  would  have  made 
a  longer  journey.  It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  those 
taking  part  in  the  ordination  of  Andrews  were  two 


The  Church  of  England.  347 

Presbyterians  properly  so  called,  viz:  Revs.  Francis 
Makemie  of  Accomac  County,  Virginia,  and  Josias 
Mackie  of  Norfolk  County,  Virginia,  and  also  two 
neighbours  of  doubtful  ecclesiastical  antecedents,  viz: 
Revs.  Samuel  Davis  (who  had  long  been  in  Delaware) 
and  Nathaniel  Taylor  (perhaps  of  Maryland,  but  whose 
being  in  New  Jersey  is  suggested  in  Rev.  Dr.  William 
Hill's  History  of  American  Presbyterianism) .  Ma- 
kemie was  an  Irishman,  said  confidently  in  Sprague's 
Annals  to  have  been  ordained  for  colonial  work  sine 
titulo  by  his  native  Presbytery  of  Laggan,  after  appli- 
cation, in  1678,  for  a  minister  in  Barbados,  and,  in 
December,  1680,  for  one  in  Maryland,  in  both  of  which 
places  we  find  Makemie  preaching.  If  his  ordination 
in  Ireland  or  that  of  Davis  or  Taylor  in  the  British 
Isles  is  ddubted,  there  were  a  number  of  Scotch  or 
Irish  Presbyterian  ministers  in  New  Jersey  or  Mary- 
land for  several  years  previous  to  the  English  Revolu- 
tion, who  might  have  ordained  each  of  the  three,  among 
such  Scotch  or  Irish  ministers  being  Rev.  William 
Trail  1,  the  former  Moderator  of  the  aforesaid  Laggan 
Presbytery,  who,  after  that  body  was  broken  up,  went 
to  Maryland.  Rev.  Dr.  Robert  Ellis  Thompson,  D.D., 
in  his  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Churches  in  the 
United  States,  gives  1682  as  the  date  of  Traill's  ar- 
rival, and  1683  as  that  of  Makemie 's.  The  last  named 
went  to  Europe  in  1704,  and,  in  1705,  brought  back 
Revs.  George  Macnish  and  John  Hampton,  and  gath- 
ered together  the  Presbytery  of  Philadelphia,  the 
Mother  Presbytery  of  the  United  States.  The  minutes 
of  the  body  are  preserved  from  the  meeting  in  Phila- 
delphia in  1706,  when  Makemie  was  Moderator,  and 
Andrews,  Davis,  Wilson,  Taylor,  Macnish,  and  Hamp- 
ton were  the  other  ministers,  with  John  Boyd,  a  licen- 
tiate from  Ireland,  whom  they  ordained  for  Freehold, 
New  Jersey.  Andrews  and  Wilson  and  possibly  Davis 
were  the  only  ones  stationed  in  Penn's  dominions.    The 


348  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

congregation  in  the  capital  city  is  seen  from  the  sur- 
names in  the  early  records  to  have  been  made  up  of 
English  Nonconformists,  New  Englanders,  and  New 
York  Reformed  Dutch,  and  never  in  times  following 
could  be  classified  as  Scotch  Irish,  although  including 
persons  of  that  race.  It  is  likely  that  an  important 
early  Presbyterian  of  Philadelphia,  William  Allen,  a 
sea  captain  who  married  into  the  Budd  family,  and  was 
father  of  the  rich  Chief  Justice  of  the  name,  was  a 
Scotch-Irishman,  as  this  sea  captain  mentions  in  his 
will  a  sister  Catherine  Cally  living  in  Dungannon  in 
Ireland,  and  an  uncle  William  Craig  at  that  place.  In 
1714,  a  congregation  was  started  in  the  Great  Valley, 
i.e.  in  Tredyffrin  Township,  Chester  County,  and,  in 
the  same  year,  some  Independents  formed  one  at  Abing- 
ton,  then  in  Philadelphia  County,  and  accepted  Presby- 
terianism,  calling  as  Pastor  a  Welsh  Presbyterian, 
Rev.  Malachi  Jones,  who,  on  arrival,  was  admitted  to 
the  Presbytery  as  an  ordained  minister. 

In  1716,  the  Presbytery  agreed  to  divide  into  three 
or  four  presbyteries,  which  should  unite  annually  in 
a  Synod.  Six  ministers  were  to  compose  the  new 
Presbytery  retaining  the  name  of  Philadelphia,  viz. 
Andrews  and  Jones  and  Howell  Powell  or  ap  Howell, 
who  had  been  ordained  in  Wales,  and  was  settled  at 
Cohansey,  N.  J.,  and  John  Bradner,  a  Scotchman, 
recently  ordained  for  Cape  May,  and  Joseph  Morgan, 
born  and  ordained  in  Connecticut,  then  at  Freehold, 
N.  J.,  and  Robert  Orr,  then  at  Hopewell,  N.  J.,  who 
was  the  only  Irishman,  he  having  come  from  "the  old 
country"  as  a  probationer.  Another  Presbytery  was 
to  bear  the  name  of  New  Castle,  which  Isaac  Norris  in 
a  letter  in  1700  called  "that  Frenchified,  Scotchified, 
Dutchified  place,"  and  in  this  Presbytery  were  James 
Anderson,  ordained  by  Irvine  Presbytery  in  Scotland, 
and  who  was  the  minister  at  New  Castle,  Daniel  Mc- 
G-ill,  sent  from  London  to  a  Scotch  congregation  at 


The  Church  of  England.  349 

Marlborough,  Md.,  Kobert  Wotherspoon,  who  had  come 
as  a  probationer  from  Scotland,  and  was  minister 
at  Appoquinimy,  Del.,  David  Evans,  a  Welshman, 
preaching  to  his  countrymen  at  the  Welsh  Tract  in 
New  Castle  Co.  and  in  the  Great  Valley,  Chester  Co., 
Hugh  Conn,  a  native  of  Ireland,  and  graduate  of  Glas- 
gow, minister  at  Patapsco,  Maryland,  and  George 
Gillespie,  a  native  of  Glasgow,  also  educated  at  the 
university  there,  and  licensed  by  Glasgow  Presbytery, 
ordained  for  the  White  Clay  Creek  congregation,  and 
serving  that  vicinity.  Three  ministers  were  to  compose 
a  Presbytery  of  Snow  Hill,  viz :  Davis,  who  was  preach- 
ing at  Lewes,  and  Hampton,  who  was  minister  for 
Snow  Hill,  and  John  Henry,  ordained  by  Dublin  Pres- 
bytery, minister  for  Rehoboth  and  the  lower  part  of  the 
Eastern  Shore:  but  this  Presbytery  did  not  go  into 
operation.  To  bring  the  Northern  Calvinists  into  a 
Presbytery  of  Long  Island  were  Macnish,  then  at 
Jamaica,  Long  Island,  and  Samuel  Pumry  at  Newtown, 
Long  Island,  a  New  Englander,  ordained  by  New  Eng- 
enders, and  admitted  to  the  "Mother  Presbytery"  only 
a  year  before.  Anderson  was  soon  sent  to  be  the  first 
minister  of  the  Scots  congregation  in  the  City  of  New 
York.  Communion  with  many  of  the  Connecticut  min- 
isters, and  some  accessions  to  the  Presbytery  of  Long 
Island,  and  accessions  of  Nonconformists  in  Maryland 
and  Virginia  to  the  Presbytery  of  New  Castle,  seemed 
to  promise  a  large  religious  denomination  based  upon 
opinion,  and  drawing  strength  almost  equally  from  dif- 
ferent races.  In  connection  with  the  Irish,  or  Scotch 
Irish,  immigration,  the  further  history  of  Pennsylvania 
Presbyterianism  will  be  given  in  a  later  chapter. 

The  fact  that  the  Anglican  clergymen  in  the  colonies 
were  practically  out  of  the  Bishop  of  London's  reach, 
and  unworthy  men  of  the  cloth  resorted  thither,  and 
that  the  laymen  could  not  be  confirmed,  unless  they 
went  to  England,  induced  many,  including  Talbot  as 


350  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

early  as  1703,  and  Bp.  Compton,  who  suggested  a 
suffragan  for  Virginia  in  1707,  to  favor  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  bishop  for  America.  Abp.  Tenison  left  £1000 
towards  providing  for  two  bishops  there,  the  interest, 
until  such  were  consecrated,  to  be  paid  to  disabled  mis- 
sionaries of  the  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gos- 
pel. Petitions  for  a  bishop  were  sent  by  the  Vestry  of 
Christ  Church,  Philadelphia,  in  1718  and  1719,  Talbot, 
who  was  often  holding  service  there,  joining  in  the  lat- 
ter of  these  petitions.  In  about  a  year  after  its  date,  he 
went  to  England,  and  in  April,  1721,  he  obtained  an 
order  from  the  Lord  Chancellor  for  the  interest  on 
Tenison 's  £1000. 

Those  in  power  in  Church  and  State  not  being  likely 
to  provide  America  with  any  one  invested  with  the 
spiritual  functions  of  a  bishop,  Talbot  turned  to  the 
Non-Jurors,  who,  without  asking  permission  of  Han- 
overian King  or  Whig  Parliament,  were  keeping  up 
an  episcopal  succession.  One  of  their  bishops  was 
Ealph  Taylor,  D.D.,  consecrated  on  Jany.  25,  1720-1, 
in  Grey's  Inn,  in  the  presence  of  the  Earl  of  Win- 
chelsea  and  others,  by  Bps.  Hawes,  Spinckes,  and 
Gandy.  Among  the  priests  of  this  faction  was  the 
Rev.  Richard  Welton,  D.D.  (Cantab.),  formerly  Rector 
of  St.  Mary's,  White  Chapel,  who  was  deprived  in  1715 
for  not  taking  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  George  I.  Tal- 
bot, not  holding  a  position  in  Great  Britain,  had  not 
been  required  to  take  this  oath,  although,  when  an 
English  rector,  he  must  have  sworn  allegiance  to 
William  and  Mary.  Bp.  Taylor  now  consecrated  Wel- 
ton and  Talbot  himself,  Welton  no  doubt  receiving  the 
laying  on  of  hands  first.  Rawlinson's  manuscript  list 
of  consecrations  by  Non-Jurors  (Notes  and  Queries, 
3rd  Series,  Vol.  I,  p.  225)  says,  without  date,  and  in 
a  misleading  place  in  the  list:  "Ric.  Welton  D.D.  was 
consecrated  by  Dr.  Taylor  alone  in  a  clandestine  man- 
ner. —  Talbot,    M.A.,   was  consecrated   by   the    same 


The  Church  of  England.  351 

person  at  the  same  time  and  as  irregularly."  The  date 
could  scarcely  have  been  later  than  Oct.  1,  1722,  0.  S., 
as  Talbot  writes  from  Burlington  on  Nov.  27,  speaking 
of  his  six  weeks'  voyage  home.  The  consecration  of 
these  two  was  disapproved  of  by  Taylor's  fellow 
bishops  either  before  or  after  it  had  taken  place,  and 
may  be  described  as  uncanonical  but  valid. 

Whether  either  Welton  or  Talbot  ever  performed 
any  episcopal  function  is  not  proved.  The  probability 
is  that  they  administered  confirmation,  when  they  could 
do  it  in  secret,  or  without  attracting  much  attention, 
the  confirming  of  a  few,  who  could  not  otherwise  be 
confirmed,  not  being  likely  to  be  looked  upon  by  those 
in  political  or  ecclesiastical  power  as  an  interference. 

Talbot  resumed  charge  of  the  Burlington  church,  and 
on  Oct.  23,  1723,  was  willing,  as  a  member  of  the  con- 
vention of  the  clergy  "of  this  province"  (Pennsylvania 
with  the  Territories)  to  concur  in  the  removal  of  Rev. 
John  Urmston  from  Christ  Church,  Philadelphia,  which 
Urmston  was  supplying  in  the  interim  following  the 
death  of  an  appointee  of  the  Bishop  of  London.  After- 
wards Talbot  occasionally  filled  that  pulpit.  Urmston 
wrote  on  June  30,  1724,  that,  after  Talbot  had  been 
there  about  three  months,  some  persons  threatened 
Sir  William  Keith,  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  that  if 
such  a  Jacobite  were  allowed  to  officiate,  they  would 
complain  against  both  him  and  the  Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor. So  Keith,  shutting  up  the  church  building, 
made  Talbot  leave  about  the  end  of  February.  Urm- 
ston adds:    "Some  of  his  confidants  have  discovered 

that  he  is  in orders,  as  many  more  rebels  are. 

I  have  heard  of  no  ordinations  he  has  made  as  yet." 
Urmston  supposed  that  Talbot  would  persuade  clergy- 
men to  be  reordained  by  him,  m  accordance  with  the 
opinion  of  some  Jacobites  that  all  ordinations  by  the 
bishops  who  supplanted  the  Non-Jurors  were  illegal. 
Before   or   a   few   days   after   Urmston 's   letter   was 


352  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

written,  Welton  came  to  America,  bringing  probably 
for  Talbot  and  himself  the  episcopal  seals,  with  one  of 
which  Talbot's  widow  sealed  her  will,  and  the  other 
being  found  among  Welton 's  effects  at  his  death.  A 
letter  from  Gov.  Keith  dated  July  24,  mentions  reports 
that  some  of  the  Non-juring  clergy  of  the  neighbour- 
hood pretended  to  the  authority  and  office  of  bishops, 
but  says  that  they  do  not  own  it,  and  that  he  has  an- 
nounced his  determination  to  prosecute  all  who  should 
attempt i '  to  debauch  any  of  the  people  with  schismati- 
cal  disloyal  principles  of  that  nature."  Governor 
Burnet  of  New  Jersey  writes  on  Aug.  3  that  Talbot 
had  had  the  folly  to  confess  that  he  is  a  bishop.  Rev. 
Jacob  Henderson  of  Maryland  writes  on  Aug.  16  that 
Mr.  Talbot  had  arrived  two  years  before,  but  his  epis- 
copal orders  had  been  kept  a  great  secret  until  of  late, 
and  that,  about  six  weeks  before  the  date  of  the  letter, 
Dr.  Welton  had  arrived,  "as  I  am  credibly  informed 
in  the  same  capacity."  Christ  Church  was  reopened 
for  ministrations  performed  by  Welton.  Peter  Evans, 
in  a  letter  defending  the  course  of  the  vestrymen,  says 
that  English  newspapers  had  reported  that  Welton  had 
taken  the  oaths.  Accordingly,  the  opportunity  had 
been  embraced  to  have  services  resumed,  Welton  being 
asked  on  July  27  to  take  charge.  In  due  time,  warning 
from  England  was  sent  to  the  Lieutenant-Governor, 
who  answered,  that,  as  the  Vestry  was  entirely  inde- 
pendent of  him,  he  could  not  be  held  responsible,  and 
suggested  the  desirability  of  some  authority  to  him, 
instead  of  allowing  a  minister  to  be  admitted  by  a 
Vestry  without  license  from  the  Bishop  or  an  induction. 
Such  provision  for  worship  the  Vestry,  however,  only 
made  in  an  emergencj^,  and  to  be  superseded  by  the 
arrival  of  the  Bishop 's  appointee  three  months  at  least 
after  an  incumbent's  death.  Gov.  Keith  himself,  for 
the  marriage  ceremony  of  his  daughter  in  December, 
1724,  made  use  of  Welton. 


The  Church  of  England.  353 

Talbot  had  been  reported  by  Urmston  to  have  put 
on  episcopal  robes,  and  to  have  demanded  obedience 
from  the  other  clergy,  perhaps  on  the  occasion  of  the 
convention  which  agreed  to  the  removal  of  Urmston, 
but  Talbot,  writing  on  July  2,  1725,  to  the  Bishop  of 
London,  denied  exercising  jurisdiction  over  the  mis- 
sionaries, and  declared  that  he  could  prove  his  inno- 
cence by  a  thousand  persons.  He  was  not  disturbed, 
and  is  stated  to  have  taken  the  required  oath  before 
long. 

Welton  did  not  fare  so  well.  A  writ  of  privy  seal 
was  sent  over  to  Lieutenant-Governor  Keith  command- 
ing Welton  on  his  allegiance  to  return  forthwith  to 
England.  The  notice  was  served  in  January,  1725-6, 
and  Welton  started,  about  March  1,  on  what  was  often 
at  that  period  the  only  way  of  reaching  London,  viz: 
taking  a  vessel  bound  directly  for  Lisbon.  While  at 
Lisbon,  he  died  of  dropsy  in  August,  1726,  refusing  to 
join  in  the  communion  service  with  the  English  clergy- 
men there. 

To  supply  the  want  of  sufficient  foundation  for  ec- 
clesiastical jurisdiction  by  the  Bishop  of  London  over 
America,  Bp.  Gibson,  on  Feb.  9  in  the  13th  year  of 
George  I's  reign,  obtained  a  royal  patent  conferring 
certain  powers  upon  himself  during  royal  pleasure. 
This  was  expressly  revoked  by  a  patent  from  George  II 
dated  Apr.  29  in  the  1st  year  of  his  reign  (1728), 
whereby  visitatorial  power  over  colonial  churches 
whose  service  was  according  to  the  English  liturgy  and 
the  right  to  inflict  ecclesiastical  punishments,  subject  to 
appeal,  upon  the  ministers  of  such  churches,  and  upon 
colonial  presbyters  and  deacons  in  English  orders,  was 
conferred  upon  Bp.  Gibson  personally,  to  be  exercised 
by  commissaries  by  him  appointed  and  removed. 

There  were  several  districts  of  the  civilized  part  of 
Pennsylvania  to  which  the  services  of  the  Church  were 
extended,  chiefly  by  ministers  stationed  at  places  before 

23 


354  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

mentioned,  often  many  miles  away,  during  the  period 
from  1700  to  1748,  and  to  those  days  is  traced  the  col- 
lecting of  the  congregations  of  St.  Peter's  in  Great 
Valley,  St.  Thomas's  at  Whitemarsh,  St.  James's  at 
Perkiomen,  St.  Mary's  at  Warwick,  St.  Martin's  at 
Chichester,  St.  John's  at  Concord,  Bangor  (Church- 
town)  in  Lancaster  Co.,  and  St.  John's,  Pequea  (Com- 
passville).  Some  details  will  be  found  with  a  reprint 
of  valuable  documents  in  the  edition  very  recently 
issued  of  Henry  Pleasants's  History  of  Old  St.  David's 
Church  Radnor.  The  present  edifice  of  St.  Peter's 
(East  Whiteland  Township,  Chester  Co.)  in  the  Great 
Valley  was  built  in  1744.  We  are  not  concerned  with 
the  churches  and  mission  stations  of  Delaware,  which, 
however,  multiplied  very  early,  owing  somewhat  to  the 
non-Quaker  predilection  of  the  original  settlers. 

The  lot  on  which  the  overcrowded  house  of  worship 
for  Christ  Church  in  Philadelphia  was  standing,  was 
enlarged  by  the  purchase  of  ground  adjoining  on  the 
north  by  Robert  Assheton,  Dr.  John  Kearsley,  and 
Samuel  Hasell  by  deed  of  July  19,  1725,  and,  on  April 
27,  1727,  the  corner-stone  of  a  western  addition  to  the 
building  was  laid  by  Lieutenant-Governor  Gordon. 
Eventually,  about  1738,  the  whole  was  embraced  in  the 
present  symmetrical  structure  except  the  steeple,  the 
latter  being  completed  some  years  later.  The  main 
structure,  even  if  not  absolutely  finished,  was  in  use 
some  time  before  Whitefield's  first  visit. 

A  movement  on  somewhat  the  same  general  principle 
as  Pietism  among  the  Lutherans,  which  will  be  spoken 
of  in  connection  with  the  German  immigration,  started 
within  the  Church  of  England  in  the  reign  of  George  II. 
The  nickname  ''Methodists"  given  to  certain  young 
men,  because,  in  their  religious  fervor,  they  undertook 
to  live  by  rule  and  method,  was  accepted  by  them,  and 
has  been  retained  by  their  followers  in  other  ideas, 
inappropriate  or  insufficient  as  is  the  designation.    The 


The  Church  of  England.  355 

separation  organically  of  those  so  called  from  the 
Church  of  which  the  Wesleys  and  Whitefield  were 
priests,  did  not  take  place  during  the  time  of  this  his- 
tory; so  there  are  only  to  be  noted  the  labors  of  White- 
field  in  the  region  so  closely  associated  with  two  other 
great  leaders  in  their  respective  denominations,  Penn 
and  Zinzendorf.  Whitefield 's  leadership,  strong  enough 
to  establish  an  opposition  to  John  Wesley,  differed  from 
that  of  Penn  and  Zinzendorf  in  the  absence  of  any  ad- 
vantages of  birth  to  help  Whitefield.  His  Life  by  Eev. 
L.  Tyerman  is  authority  for  most  of  the  following 
account.  George  Whitefield  was  born  on  Dec.  16,  1714, 
at  Gloucester,  England,  and  entered  at  Oxford  in  1732. 
As  an  undergraduate,  he  joined,  becoming  the  most 
youthful  member,  the  "Holy  Club,"  as  others  at  the 
University  laughingly  styled  the  coterie  gathered  by 
Charles  Wesley  for  acts  of  devotion,  such  as  receiving 
the  communion  every  week,  and  for  acts  of  charity. 
Whitefield  was  impressed  by  the  book  The  Life  of  God 
in  the  Soul  of  Man  with  the  essential  need  of  the  new 
birth,  defined  to  be  the  vital  union  with  Christ  in  the 
heart.  Whitefield  "experienced  that  assurance  which 
comes  in  conversion"  about  June,  1735,  which  was 
several  years  before  the  Wesleys  experienced  it,  and 
he  soon  became  fully  persuaded  that  justification  is  by 
faith  only,  although  that  doctrine  took  a  small  place 
in  his  earliest  sermons.  Whitefield  was  made  deacon 
by  the  Bishop  of  Gloucester  on  Sunday,  June  20,  1736, 
about  two  weeks  before  graduation  as  B.A.,  and  at- 
tracted attention  even  by  his  first  sermon,  and,  while  a 
deacon,  drew  crowds  in  London  and  Bristol,  people  in 
the  latter  city  hanging  upon  the  rails  of  the  organ  loft, 
and  climbing  on  the  leads  of  the  church.  Whitefield 
had  spent  several  months  as  a  missionary  in  the  new 
colony  of  Georgia,  and  been  ordained  priest  at  Oxford 
on  Sunday,  Jany.  14, 1738-9,  by  the  aforesaid  Bishop  of 
Gloucester,  acting  for  Bp.  Seeker  of  Oxford,  and  was 


356  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

on  the  way  a  second  time  to  Georgia  when  he  first 
visited  Pennsylvania.  He  had  become  the  foremost 
exponent  of  the  views  of  the  Methodists.  When  the 
strange  effect  upon  some  whom  he  had  moved,  the  doc- 
trines themselves,  and  the  expressions  in  his  published 
journals  had  made  the  clergy  of  any  place  withhold 
the  use  of  their  churches,  Whitefield  had  preached  in 
fields  and  parks,  often  to  twenty  thousand  persons,  and 
at  least  once  to  thirty  thousand;  but  just  before  his 
embarkation  for  this  visit  to  America,  those  who  ap- 
peared in  print  against  him  or  the  excitement  which 
he  promoted,  were  joined  by  Bishop  Gibson. 

Whitefield  and  his  friend  William  Seward  arrived 
in  Philadelphia  in  the  evening  of  Friday,  Nov.  2,  1739, 
on  horseback  from  Lewes,  where  they  had  left  the  ship. 
The  attitude  of  Bp.  Gibson,  if  it  was  then  known  in  the 
colonies,  did  not  prevent  his  Commissary  for  Pennsyl- 
vania, Eev.  Dr.  Archibald  Cummings,  Eector  of  Christ 
Church,  from  receiving  Whitefield  with  civility,  nor 
the  people  from  wishing  to  hear  him.  He  read  prayers, 
and  assisted  in  the  administration  of  the  communion 
at  Christ  Church  in  the  morning  of  the  following  Sun- 
day, and  preached  there  that  afternoon  and  every  day 
for  the  rest  of  that  week  with  increasing  congregations, 
and  also  in  the  afternoon  of  the  second  Sunday.  He 
dined  at  Thomas  Penn's  and  at  both  church  wardens', 
was  often  visited  by  the  Presbyterian  minister,  by  the 
Baptist  minister,  and  by  Quakers,  and  twice  preached 
at  six  in  the  evening  from  the  court  house  stairs  to 
several  thousand  persons.  After  a  trip  to  New  York, 
Whitefield  preached  in  the  yard  of  Rev.  William  Ten- 
nent's  church  on  the  Neshaminy  to  about  three  thou- 
sand, and  from  the  porch  window  of  the  Presbyterian 
church  at  Abington,  and  again  several  times  in  Christ 
Church.  On  one  of  the  last  mentioned  occasions,  Sun- 
day morning,  Nov.  25,  after  his  sermon,  the  Rev. 
Richard  Peters,  Secretary  of  the  Province,  who  had 


The  Church  of  England.  357 

retired  from  the  work  of  the  ministry,  "  exclaimed  with 
a  loud  voice  'That  there  was  no  such  term  as  imputed 
righteousness  in  Holy  Scripture;  that  such  a  doctrine 
put  a  stop  to  all  goodness;  and  that  we  were  to  be 
judged  for  our  good  works  and  obedience,  and  were 
commanded  to  do  and  live.'  "  When  he  had  ended, 
Whitefield  says:  "I  denied  his  first  proposition,  and 
brought  a  text  to  prove  that  'imputed  righteousness' 
was  a  scriptural  expression,  but,  thinking  the  church 
an  improper  place  for  disputation,  I  said  no  more  at 
the  time.  In  the  afternoon,  however,  I  discoursed  upon 
the  words  'The  Lord  our  Righteousness.'  " 

When  Whitefield  was  to  preach  his  farewell  sermon, 
in  the  afternoon  of  Wednesday  Nov.  28,  the  church  not 
being  large  enough  for  those  expected,  he  adjourned  to 
the  fields,  and  preached  to  ten  thousand.  The  next  day, 
people  wept  at  his  door  when  he  departed;  twenty 
gentlemen  on  horseback  accompanied  him  out  of  town, 
and  were  joined  by  others,  until  there  were  two  hun- 
dred. At  Chester,  the  minister  secured  a  balcony  for 
him,  the  church  being  too  small,  the  court  adjourned, 
and  Whitefield  spoke  to  five  thousand,  of  whom  about 
one  fifth  had  come  from  Philadelphia.  Crowds  as  large 
in  proportion  heard  him  in  the  Lower  Counties. 

He  was  energetically  philanthropic  as  well  as,  we 
may  say,  violently  religious.  His  main  purpose  in 
going  back  to  Georgia  after  his  first  visit  there,  and 
the  object  of  all  his  begging  sermons  in  England  in 
1739,  and  in  Pennsylvania  in  1739  and  1740,  was  to 
carry  on  a  house  for  the  care  of  poor  orphans  in 
Savannah.  To  buy  provisions  for  this,  he  had  come  by 
way  of  Philadelphia  on  his  second  trip  to  America. 
He  had  received  about  forty  orphans  under  his  care, 
and,  on  the  five  hundred  acres  donated  by  the  Trustees 
of  the  Colony,  had  started  the  main  building  before  he 
came  back  to  Philadelphia.  He  had  favored  the  allow- 
ing of  slavery  as  the  only  means  of  developing  the 


358  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

colony,  but,  at  the  end  of  1739,  he  had  seen  the  miseries 
of  the  slaves  in  Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Carolina, 
and  South  Carolina,  and  he  printed  a  letter  to  the  in- 
habitants of  those  colonies,  telling  them  that  he  thought 
that  God  had  a  quarrel  with  them  for  their  cruelty  to 
the  negroes.  The  question  of  the  lawfulness  of  buying 
slaves  was  passed  over,  but  it  was  declared  a  sin  to 
use  them  worse  than  brutes,  not  only  in  the  barbarity 
with  which  they  were  punished,  but  in  not  giving  them 
convenient  food  to  eat  or  proper  raiment,  and  in  oblig- 
ing them  to  grind  the  corn  for  themselves  after  a  day's 
work.  Whitefield  said  that  he  prayed  God  that  the 
slaves  might  never  get  the  upper  hand,  yet,  should  such 
a  thing  be  permitted  by  Providence, ' '  all  good  men  must 
acknowledge  the  judgment  would  be  just." 

The  effect  of  Whitefield  upon  the  Presbyterians  will 
be  noted  in  the  chapter  upon  the  Irish  and  their  Kirk. 

The  Anglicans  of  Philadelphia  had  been  divided  for 
several  years  between  the  friends  of  Peters  and  the 
Kector  respectively,  only  dissuasion  by  Peters  himself 
preventing  the  building  of  a  separate  church  for  him. 
His  action  towards  Whitefield  discrediting  the  latter, 
as  it  did  somewhat,  and  stemming  the  general  assent 
to  his  teaching,  aroused  against  the  plucky  interrupter 
an  ' '  evangelical ' '  party.  However,  the  Rector  came  to 
the  side  inimical  to  Whitefield,  after  the  latter,  during 
the  few  months  before  his  return,  reiterated  and  vindi- 
cated in  print  his  remark,  originally  made  privately  by 
John  Wesley,  that ' '  Archbishop  Tillotson  knew  no  more 
about  true  Chrisianity  than  Mahomet. ' '  So  the  Rector 
refused  Whitefield  the  use  of  Christ  Church,  when,  on 
coming  back,  he  asked  for  it. 

After  ten  days '  voyage  in  a  sloop  bought  by  White- 
field  and  Seward,  they  and  a  number  of  Moravians  ar- 
rived at  New  Castle  from  Savannah.  On  Sunday,  April 
13,  1740,  the  day  of  or  day  after  landing,  Whitefield 
preached  in  the  church,  the  Rector  being  ill.     It  being 


The  Church  of  England.  359 

made  known  that  he  would  preach  there  in  the  after- 
noon also,  the  Presbyterian  minister  at  White  Clay 
Creek,  or  Christiana  Bridge,  gave  up  his  second  meet- 
ing for  worship,  and,  with  two  hundred  others,  rode 
to  New  Castle  and  heard  Whitefield.  The  next  day, 
Whitefield  preached  at  Wilmington  from  the  balcony 
of  the  house  where  he  lodged,  to  three  thousand  people. 
In  Philadelphia,  a  platform  was  erected  for  him  on 
Society  Hill  (near  Front  and  Lombard),  and  there  or 
at  the  court  house  he  preached  to  from  five  to  fifteen 
thousand  persons  daily,  except  when  preaching  out  of 
town. 

Whitefield  undertook  to  found  in  Pennsylvania  a 
school  for  negroes,  and  with  it  a  settlement  for  persons 
converted  in  England  by  his  preaching,  and  subjected 
to  annoyance  on  that  account.  For  a  site,  an  agreement 
was  made  on  April  22,  1740, — Reichel  gives  the  date 
in  new  style  as  May  3 — with  William  Allen  to  buy  from 
him  for  2200Z.  5000  acres  at  the  Forks  of  the  Delaware, 
title  to  be  made  to  Whitefield,  and  then  assigned  to 
Seward,  who  had  some  fortune,  as  security  for 
Seward's  advancing  the  money.  Two  days  afterwards, 
Whitefield  preached  in  the  morning  at  the  German  set- 
tlement on  the  Skippack  Creek  to  about  five  thousand 
persons,  and  in  the  evening,  after  riding  twelve  miles 
to  Henry  Antes 's,  to  about  three  thousand,  the  Mo- 
ravian Bohler  following  with  an  address  in  German. 
On  that  day,  Whitefield  offered  to  hire  as  builders  the 
Moravians  who  had  arrived  from  Savannah  on  the 
sloop  with  him.  The  ground  being  visited,  the  Mo- 
ravians, by  the  cast  of  the  lot,  according  to  their 
custom,  felt  directed  to  engage.  Seward,  on  April  28, 
left  Philadelphia  for  England,  partly  to  convert  some 
securities  into  cash,  and  also  to  solicit  contributions. 
He  was  hit  on  the  head  at  Caerleon,  Wales,  and  died  a 
few  days  later,  Oct.  22,  1740.  On  Sunday,  May  11, 
Whitefield  went  twice  to  Christ  Church,  Philadelphia, 


360  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

and  there  heard  himself  taken  to  task  by  the  preacher; 
and,  in  the  afternoon,  Whitefield  preached  as  a  farewell 
to  nearly  twenty  thousand  hearers.  After  preaching  in 
New  Castle  and  Chester  County,  he  sailed  to  Savannah. 
After  he  left,  his  friends  designed  a  meeting-house 
for  him  to  preach  in,  and  a  school  for  poor  children  to 
be  carried  on  within  it.  He  seems,  from  two  letters 
written  on  July  18  from  Charleston,  to  have  first  heard 
of  this  on  that  day  or  the  night  before.  One  letter  is 
to  Mr.  I.  R.  (James  Read?),  and  thanks  him  for  going 

with  friends  E and  B (perhaps  Bohler)  to 

Nazareth,  and  says  later  on :  "I  thank  my  dear  friends 
for  their  zeal  in  building  a  house,  but  desire  it  may  not 
have  any  particular  name  or  be  put  to  any  particular 
use  till  my  return  to  Philadelphia.  I  wish  them  good 
luck  in  the  Dame  of  the  Lord."  A  foot  note  to  the 
collection  of  Whitefield 's  Works,  published  in  1771, 
says  that  the  building  ' '  is  now  the  College  of  Philadel- 
phia." The  other  letter  speaks  of  private  letters  re- 
ceived from  Philadelphia  the  night  before  or  that  morn- 
ing, and  says:  "Philadelphia  people  are  building  a 
house  for  me  to  preach  in  one  hundred  and  six  feet  long 
and  seventy-four  feet  wide."  An  advertisement,  dated 
July,  1740,  appeared  in  a  Philadelphia  newspaper. 
After  saying  that  the  Almighty  had  now  disposed  many 
Christians  to  lay  aside  bigotry  and  party  zeal,  and 
unite  their  endeavors  to  promote  the  interest  of  the 
kingdom  of  Jesus,  the  advertisement  proceeds:  "With 
this  view  it  hath  been  thought  proper  to  erect  a  large 
building  for  a  charity  school  for  the  instruction  of  poor 
children  gratis  in  useful  literature  and  the  knowledge 
of  the  Christian  Religion  and  also  for  a  house  of  public 
worship  the  houses  of  this  place  being  insufficient  to 
contain  the  great  numbers  who  convene  on  such  occa- 
sions, and  it  being  impracticable  to  meet  in  the  open 
air  at  all  times  of  the  year  because  of  the  inclemency 
of  the  weather.    It  is  agreed  that  the  use  of  the  afore- 


The  Church  of  England.  361 

said  school  and  house  of  religious  worship  be  under 
the  direction  of  certain  trustees  viz:  [they  were  not 
named]  and  other  persons  to  be  appointed  by  them 
[with  provision  that,  upon  death  of  any,  the  majority 
of  the  survivors  should  fill  the  vacancy]  which  trustees 
before  named  and  hereafter  to  be  chosen  are  from  time 
to  time  to  appoint  fit  and  able  school  masters  and 
mistresses  and  introduce  such  Protestant  ministers  as 
they  judge  to  be  sound  in  principle,  acquainted  with 
experimental  religion  in  their  own  hearts  and  faithful 
in  their  practise  without  regard  to  those  distinctions 
or  different  sentiments  in  lesser  matters  which  have 
unhappily  divided  real  Christians.  .  .  .  The  build- 
ing is  actually  begun  under  the  direction  of  [not  named] 
and  the  foundation  laid  on  a  lot  of  ground  late  of 
Jonathan  Price  and  Mary  his  wife  (who  have  gener- 
ously contributed)  situate  near  Mulberry  Street  in  the 
City  of  Philada.,  where  materials  for  the  building  will 
be  received  as  also  subscriptions  for  money  and  work 
taken  in  by  the  underwritten  persons.  Philada  July 
1740."  Jonathan  Price  and  Mary  his  wife  conveyed 
by  deed  of  Sep.  15,  1740,  a  lot  on  the  west  side  of 
Delaware  Fourth  Street,  100  ft.  south  of  Mulberry 
(Arch),  150  ft.  front  by  198  ft.  deep  to  Edmond 
Woolley,  carpenter,  John  Coats,  bricklayer,  John 
Howell,  mariner,  and  William  Price,  carpenter:  and 
these  and  other  friends  of  Whitefield  built  on  it  the 
hall  one  hundred  feet  long  and  seventy  feet  wide.  The 
roof  was  not  yet  on,  when  the  first  sermon  resounded 
there.  This  was  preached  by  Whitefield  on  Sunday, 
Nov.  9.  By  deed  of  Nov.  14,  Woolley,  Coats,  Howell, 
and  Price  covenated  to  stand  seized  for  Whitefield, 
Seward  (whose  death  was  not  then  known  in  America), 
John  Stephen  Benezet  of  Phila.,  merchant,  James  Eead 
of  Phila.,  gent.,  Thomas  Noble  of  New  York,  merchant, 
Samuel  Hazard  of  New  York,  merchant,  Robert  East- 
burne  of  Phila.,  blacksmith,  Edward  Evans  of  Phila., 


362  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

cordwainer,  and  Charles  Brockden,  the  Recorder  of 
Deeds  of  Phila.  Co.,  and  for  the  survivor  in  fee,  they 
to  have  power  to  appoint  new  trustees,  in  trust  sub- 
stantially as  stated  in  the  advertisement,  and  to  convey 
as  directed  by  a  majority  of  the  trustees.  The  school 
was  not  started  by  these  projectors,  probably  because 
Whitefield  soon  found  himself  heavily  in  debt  for  his 
Orphan  House  in  Georgia,  and  obliged  to  confine  him- 
self, in  appealing  for  money,  to  that  or  some  other 
pressing  object,  while  Christ  Church  seems  to  have  been 
spurred  on  in  the  matter  of  its  parochial  school.  On 
6mo.  8,  1747,  Woolley  and  Coats  petitioned  the  As- 
sembly of  the  Province  asking  that,  as  the  school  was 
part  of  the  purpose  of  the  said  building,  and  the  trust 
had  failed,  the  building  be  sold,  and  the  subscriptions 
paid  back.  In  1749,  by  direction  of  a  majority  of  the 
surviving  trustees,  whose  action  met  with  Whitefield 's 
approval,  Woolley  and  Coats  conveyed  the  building  and 
lot  for  775Z.  18s.  lid.  Sfar.,  with  which  to  pay  off  certain 
advances,  to  James  Logan  and  others,  who  are  usually 
denominated  the  founders  of  the  University  of  Penn- 
sylvania, to  be  used  as  a  free  school  for  the  instruction 
of  children  in  useful  literature  and  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, with  the  right  to  establish  a  seminary  of  the 
languages,  arts,  and  sciences,  and  as  a  place  of  worship 
wherein  Mr.  Whitefield  should  be  allowed  to  preach 
whenever  he  was  in  the  city,  and  so  desired,  and  the 
trustees  should  introduce  such  preachers  to  teach  the 
word  of  God  as  should  subscribe  to  the  articles  of  re- 
ligion appended  to  the  deed  of  conveyance;  which 
articles  declare  belief  in  the  Trinity,  the  Atonement, 
and  Justification  bv  Faith,  and  end  in  affirming  the 
IXth,  Xth,  Xlth,  Xllth,  XHIth,  and  XVHth  Articles 
of  the  Church  of  England  ''as  explained  by  the  Cal- 
vinists  in  their  literal  and  grammatical  sense."  Thus 
the  College  of  Philadelphia,  afterwards  the  University, 


The  Chuech  of  England.  363 

came  into  possession  of  the  building  which  was  its  main 
hall  until  removal  to  Ninth  Street. 

Whitefield's  stay  in  Philadelphia  in  the  Fall  of  1740 
was  for  about  a  fortnight,  at  the  end  of  a  visit  to  New 
England  and  New  York. 

Two  houses  had  by  that  time  been  built  at  Nazareth, 
as  he  named  the  place  for  the  negro  school.  Now 
came  a  dispute  between  him  and  those  employed  by 
him.  Reichel  says  that  Whitefield,  disapproving  of  one 
of  Bohler's  doctrinal  opinions,  and  unable  in  an  argu- 
ment conducted  in  Latin  to  convince  him,  discharged 
the  Moravians,  closing  the  interview  with  the  words: 
"Sic  jubeo;  stet  voluntas  pro  ratione."  The  Morav- 
ians were  allowed  to  stay  on  the  property  for  some 
months  by  Allen's  agent;  and  the  whole  project  fail- 
ing, largely  through  Seward's  death,  Whitefield,  after 
taking  title,  was  glad  to  assign  it  to  the  Moravians. 
This  he  did  when  in  England.  The  further  history  of 
the  property  and  an  account  of  the  religious  people 
aforesaid  and  some  reflections  on  the  difference  between 
the  work  of  Whitefield  and  Zinzendorf  will  appear  in 
a  chapter  on  the  Unitas  Fratrum  and  Church  Unity. 
Whitefield  was  absent  from  America  during  the  whole 
time  of  Zinzendorf 's  visit.  Zinzendorf,  after  return- 
ing to  England,  declared  the  opposition  of  the  Morav- 
ians to  Whitefield,  unless  he  would  recant  his  doctrine 
of  reprobation,  and  openly  preach  free  grace.  This 
estrangement  of  two  bodies  once  so  sympathetic  ex- 
plains Benjamin  Franklin's  story  of  the  unwillingness 
of  the  trustees  of  Whitefield's  building  in  Philadelphia 
to  elect  any  Moravian  as  successor  to  the  Moravian 
member  who  had  died. 

Dr.  Cummings,  Rector  of  Christ  Church,  Philadel- 
phia, having  died  on  Apr.  23,  1741,  Peters,  although 
he  warned  his  friends  of  the  "evangelical"  feeling 
against  him,  was  favored  for  the  Rectorate  by  the 
majority  of  the  Vestry,   although  not  by   the   older 


364  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

members.  His  stand  against  Whitefield  was  portrayed 
as  a  merit  by  Lieut.-Gov.  Thomas  in  a  letter  of  recom- 
mendation. Thomas  Penn,  still  a  Quaker,  tried,  out 
of  friendship,  to  influence  the  Bishop  of  London.  On 
the  other  hand,  Peters  was  opposed  by  those  who 
wished  to  keep  clear  of  the  Proprietaries,  and,  in  the 
interests  of  peace,  the  neighbouring  clergymen  pro- 
tested against  such  an  appointment.  Bp.  Gibson,  to 
whom  on  a  former  occasion,  his  Quaker  kinsman  Jere- 
miah Langhorne  had  written  in  favor  of  Peters,  was 
now  as  much  against  "Whitefield  as  formerly,  and  might 
have  been  expected  to  be  glad  to  reward  Peters,  but 
did  not  yield  to  such  considerations.  "Watson  tells  us 
that  in  1741  the  Churchmen  of  Philadelphia  manifested 
some  disaffection  at  the  alleged  supremacy  of  the 
Bishop  of  London,  saying  that,  as  the  Bishop  declined 
to  license  Mr.  Peters  after  they  had  chosen  him  (alleg- 
ing as  a  reason  his  living  by  his  lay  functions),  they 
would  not  accept  any  person  whom  he  might  license, 
claiming  that  his  diocese  did  not  extend  to  this  Prov- 
ince, and  Mr.  Peters  himself  alleging  that  a  right  of 
presentation  lay  in  the  Proprietaries  and  Governor. 
That  they  came  to  a  better  frame  of  mind  was  probably 
due  to  the  policy  of  the  prelate  in  not  filling  the  vacancy 
immediately  and  to  the  satisfaction  given  by  Rev. 
JEne&s  Ross,  who  devotedly  served  in  the  interim,  but 
it  argues  something  for  the  conscientiousness  of  Peters, 
who  became  a  useful  member  of  the  Vestry  and  a  liberal 
contributor  under  Rev.  Robert  Jenney.  Twenty  years 
later,  on  Jenney 's  death,  Peters  was  unanimously  ap- 
pointed Rector  by  the  Vestry,  and  in  1763  received  the 
approval  of  Gibson's  successor. 

Whitefield 's  early  bent  towards  the  doctrine  of  elec- 
tion &ct.  had  been  strengthened  before  his  first  coming 
to  Pennsylvania.  The  time  from  which  he  can  be  called 
a  Calvinist  is  fixed  by  Tyerman  as  about  June,  1739. 
Whitefield 's  letter  to  John  Wesley  of  the  25th  of  that 


The  Church  of  England.  365 

month,  although  starting  with  disapproval  of  Wesley's 
encouraging  convulsions  and  other  signs  in  his  hearers, 
goes  on  to  declare  the  writer  shocked  by  a  report  that 
Wesley  was  about  to  print  a  sermon  against  predesti- 
nation. Whitefield,  as  he  knew  that  his  opinion  of  it 
would  be  asked,  thought  silence  on  both  sides  desirable. 
Wesley  drew  lots,  and,  as  the  result  was  affirmative, 
printed ;  moreover  he  sent  at  least  one  copy  to  America. 
Whitefield 's  intercourse  with  Dissenters,  while  it  never 
induced  him  to  leave  the  Church  of  England,  confirmed 
him  in  the  theology  then  generally  accepted  by  Ameri- 
can Presbyterians  and  Congregationalists.  By  the 
time,  in  the  year  1741,  when  he  went  back  to  England, 
he  was  strongly  Calvinistic,  and  deemed  it  his  duty 
vigorously  to  oppose  the  Wesleys,  and  was  printing 
an  answer  to  John  Wesley's  sermon  on  free  grace. 
On  March  6,  five  days  before  Whitefield  arrived,  oc- 
curred the  split  in  the  Kingswood  Society,  from  which 
John  Wesley  dates  the  division  of  the  Methodists. 
John  Cennick,  a  layman  in  charge  of  the  school,  had 
preached  Calvinism;  Wesley  told  the  people  that  they 
must  choose  between  him  and  Cennick,  whereupon 
about  one  third  decided  to  go  with  the  latter.  White- 
field's  friends,  chiefly  Dissenters,  built  a  frame  preach- 
ing-hall for  him  in  London,  close  to  the  Foundry,  where 
John  Wesley  preached.  This  Tabernacle,  as  White- 
field  called  it,  became  the  headquarters  of  those  who 
agreed  with  him.  Three  Church  of  England  clergymen 
besides  himself,  one  being  a  Welsh  rector,  and  three 
lay  preachers  held  on  Jany.  5,  1743,  at  Waterford, 
Wales,  the  first  Calvinistic  Methodist  Conference,  and 
arranged  that  the  ordained  clergymen  should  visit  dis- 
tricts as  they  were  able,  and  that  there  should  be  lay 
preachers  as  district  superintendents  and  public  and 
private  exhorters,  and  that  Howell  Harris,  a  lay 
preacher,  should  be  their  overseer.  At  the  second 
Conference  it  was  arranged  that  Whitefield  was  to  be 


366  Cheonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Moderator  whenever  in  England,  there  were  to  be 
Quarterly  Associations,  and  in  every  county  of  South 
Wales  a  Monthly  Association  consisting  of  an  ordained 
minister  and  the  superintendent  of  the  district  or 
circuit  and  his  exhorters,  and  all  who  thought  they  had 
a  call  to  be  exhorters  should  be  examined  by  some 
Monthly  Association,  and  by  it  appointed  to  a  district. 
Thus  was  started  a  body  which  became  separated  from 
the  Church  of  England,  and  which  has  still  consider- 
able strength  in  Wales. 

Whitefield,  after  spending  three  and  a  half  years  in 
England,  and  about  a  year  in  New  England,  passed 
through  Philadelphia  in  the  Fall  of  1745.  He  was  then 
offered  8001.  to  preach  there  six  months  in  the  year, 
but  declined  and  went  on  to  Georgia.  He  was  back, 
but  only  for  a  few  days,  in  August,  1746,  but,  in  the 
following  year,  spent  part  of  May  and  June  and  a  few 
days  of  September  in  Philadelphia.  He  visited  the  city 
several  times  later  at  considerable  intervals,  the  last 
time  being  a  few  months  before  his  death,  arriving  on 
May  6,  1770,  as  we  learn  from  the  newspaper,  and, 
after  a  week's  trip  in  the  interior,  finally  leaving  on 
June  15.  He  wrote  during  his  stay :  "To  all  the  Epis- 
copal churches,  as  well  as  to  most  of  the  other  places 
of  worship,  I  have  free  access :"  and  besides  the  Second 
and  Third  Presbyterian,  the  Methodist,  the  Swedish 
at  Kingsessing,  and  St.  Paul's,  Third  Street,  he 
preached  in  both  Christ  Church  and  St.  Peter's,  then 
united  under  the  rectorate  of  his  old  opposer,  Peters. 
Whitefield  died  on  September  30, 1770,  at  Newburyport, 
Mass. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

Penn's  Second  Marriage  and  Second  Visit. 

Penn's  continued  financial  distress — Death  of 
his  first  wife  and  his  second  marriage — False  con- 
veyancing between  him  and  Ford — Opposition  to 
Penn  among  English  Quakers — The  Regents' 
orders  to  him  when  about  to  sail — Logan  and  the 
voyage  to  Pennsylvania — Birth  of  John  Penn 
"the  American" — Quary,  Morris,  and  David  Lloyd 
— Assembly  passes  laws  against  pirates  and  forbid- 
den trade — Proceedings  against  suspected  pirates 
— The  trials  in  England,  and  hanging  of  Kidd — 
Quaker  traders  provoked  at  Penn  not  curbing  the 
Admiralty  court — Tobacco — Election  for  Council- 
lors and  Assemblymen — Lloyd  suspended  from  the 
Council — Tax  for  debts  of  government  and  impost 
for  Penn — Old  Charter  surrendered:  Penn  rules 
under  powers  granted  by  King  Charles  II — Coun- 
cillors appointed  by  Penn — Water  Bailiffs — Oaths 
— Mixed  judiciary  attempted — "Sweet  Singer  of 
Israel" — Assembly  at  New  Castle  in  October  and 
November,  1700— 2000Z.  voted  to  Penn— Law  fix- 
ing right  to  vote  and  eligibility  for  Assemblymen 
— Marriage  law — Assembly  refuses  to  contribute  to 
erecting  forts  on  frontier  of  New  York — Bill  in 
Parliament  to  unite  Proprietary  governments  to 
the  Crown — New  Assembly  confirms  laws  passed 
at  New  Castle — Modified  marriage  law — Courts 
of  law  and  equity — New  Frame  of  Government — 
New  charter  for  the  City — New  Council  for  the 
Governor — Proposed  Charter  of  Property — Penn 
returns  to  England. 

William  Penn  had  been  unable  to  extricate  himself 
from  the  financial  embarrassment  in  which  the  Revo- 


368  Chkonicles  op  Pennsylvania. 

lution  of  1688  found  him,  and  which  was  marked  by 
a  change  in  the  secret  title  to  his  possessions  on  the 
western  side  of  Delaware  River  and  Bay  with  certain 
exceptions.  The  change  was  effected  by  a  release 
dated  Aug.  30,  1690,  of  his  equity  of  redemption  of  the 
lease  held  by  Ford,  and  an  assignment,  dated  Sep.  1, 
of  that  lease  to  Thomas  Ellwood,  in  trust  to  hold  it  to 
attend  the  freehold  and  inheritance,  and  a  conveyance, 
by  lease  and  release  of  Sep.  2  and  3,  from  Penn  of  the 
fee  simple  to  Ford.  The  right  to  redeem  and  annul  this 
was  dependent  upon  the  word  of  Ford.  Towards  hav- 
ing any  money  to  use  in  redemption,  Penn,  since  then, 
was  saving  nothing  out  of  his  income.  He  estimated  in 
1705  that,  on  an  average,  in  the  fifteen  years  between 
his  first  and  second  visits  to  Pennsylvania,  he  had  spent 
£400  annually  in  London  'Ho  hinder  much  mischief 
against  us  if  not  to  do  us  much  good."  During  some 
years  of  the  time,  his  Shanagarry  estate,  by  reason  of 
King  James's  war  in  Ireland  and  other  causes,  was 
unproductive.  Penn,  when  requesting  the  following 
loan,  spoke  of  £450  per  annum  (probably  the  rent-roll 
approximately)  totally  laid  waste  (his  word  was 
"wasted")  in  Ireland. 

The  request  for  a  loan  by  Pennsylvanians,  made 
under  date  of  12mo.  4,  1693,  mentioned  in  the  chapter 
on  England,  was  that  one  hundred  persons  should  lend 
Penn  each  on  an  average  100  pounds  (probably  sterling 
in  London  net  above  exchange)  without  interest  for 
four  years,  on  Penn's  bond,  to  draw  interest  on  what- 
ever might  remain  unpaid  at  the  end  of  four  years. 
As  mentioned,  the  £10,000  were  not  raised. 

Resuming  the  project  of  a  secondary  settlement  on 
the  Susquehanna  front,  Penn  made  some  sales  to  per- 
sons in  London  of  land  to  be  laid  out  between  the 
Delaware  and  Susquehanna.  To  secure  equal  oppor- 
tunities with  the  Londoners,  a  number  of  Pennsylva- 
nians entered  into  an  agreement  to  buy  Susquehanna 


Penn's  Second  Marriage  and  Second  Visit.    369 

lands  to  the  value  of  their  respective  subscriptions  at 
the  same  rate  as  sold  or  intended  to  be  to  the  Lon- 
doners, and  to  pay  for  the  pieces,  after  survey  and 
confirmation,  half  the  price  in  the  March  following 
Penn's  arrival  in  the  province  to  manage  the  purchase 
from  the  Indians,  and  the  other  half  of  the  price  in 
the  March  next  following.  If  Penn  came  not  within 
two  years  from  date,  the  agreement  was  to  be  void. 
The  date  of  the  articles  was  the  1st  of  1st  month,  1696 
(1695-6),  and  on  3,  20,  1696,  it  was  certified  that  2824Z. 
had  been  subscribed,  Carpenter  having  subscribed  the 
largest  sum,  viz :  100Z.,  Shippen  80?.,  Morris  and  Ewer 
and  David  Lloyd  each  50Z.  Markham  afterwards  sub- 
scribed 50?.,  and  later  the  sum  was  brought  up  to  3974L, 
but  this  was  not  sufficient  to  enable  Penn  to  prosecute 
the  undertaking,  or  even  to  comply  with  the  condition 
of  leaving  the  British  Isles  under  the  circumstances 
in  which  he  was,  or  had  caused  himself  to  be. 

Losing  his  first  wife  on  Feb.  23,  1693-4,  Penn,  after 
declaring  his  intention  to  the  Bristol  Men's  Meeting 
as  early  as  November  11,  1695,  married  again,  when 
over  fifty-one  years  of  age,  and  having  three  children. 
As  he  was  practically  a  reigning  prince  under  an 
emperor,  this  event  was  a  turning-point  in  the  history 
of  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware,  and  is  not  to  be  dis- 
missed from  consideration,  as  in  the  case  of  a  private, 
even  distinguished,  man,  with  the  statement  that  his 
subsequent  home  life  was  happy,  and  that  certain  chil- 
dren were  born  of  the  union.  This  adroit  politician 
seems  to  have  taken  this  step  without  calculation,  and 
showed  no  discernment  except  for  personal  qualities. 
Eomance  would  have  been  more  natural  in  a  younger 
man,  or  at  a  longer  time  after  Guli's  death.  The  less 
sentimental  reason  often  adduced  for  the  seeking  of  a 
wife,  of  being  all  alone,  or  of  having  young  children 
needing  a  mother,  did  not  exist  in  his  case.  His  finan- 
cial circumstances  made  it  so  desirable  for  him  to  re- 

24 


370  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

main  single,  and  practise  economy,  unless  he  could  get 
somebody  with  a  great  fortune,  which  benefit  to  his 
family  and  tenantry  he  was  not  securing,  that  we  are 
inclined  to  believe  that  he  found  the  justification  to  him- 
self in  the  amorous  nature  which  there  is  evidence  for 
attributing  to  him.  The  choice  which  he  made  for 
a  second  wife  has  been  commended  as  judicious,  and 
would  have  been  such  for  a  Quaker  burgher,  but  not 
for  an  impoverished  lord  palatine.  Hannah  Callowhill, 
whom  he  married  on  lmo.  5,  1695-6,  had  all  the  virtues, 
even  in  after  years  inconveniencing  herself  in  kindness 
to  her  step-son's  family,  and  she  developed  very  con- 
siderable business  capacity.  She  was  the  only  child 
of  Thomas  Callowhill,  a  respected  Quaker  of  Bristol, 
England,  successful  as  a  dealer  in  linens.  As  he  lived 
long  after  her  marriage,  and  left  his  property  to  his 
grandchildren,  no  direct  financial  advantage  was  de- 
rived by  William  Penn,  except  CallowhilPs  taking  a 
large  share  in  the  mortgage  of  1708,  and  perhaps  other 
Quakers  would  have  made  that  up.  Hannah's  family 
did  not  belong  to  the  gentry,  and  she  had  no  influential 
connections  to  strengthen  Penn  with  the  officials  of  the 
Crown,  nor  did  she  ally  him  to  any  of  the  great  leaders 
of  the  Society  of  Friends,  among  whom  the  regard  for 
him  was  none  too  strong.  Could  he  have  gone  to  Penn 
sylvania,  and  there  selected  a  bride,  and  made  the  home 
for  his  family  among  the  people  whom  he  had  led 
thither,  there  would  have  been  at  least  retrenchment 
in  the  cost  of  living,  and,  one  would  have  expected,  a 
renewal  of  popularity  with  the  taxpaying  tenantry.  If, 
indeed,  he  was  impelled  to  what  he  did  by  being  terribly 
in  love  with  the  lady,  the  disastrous  consequences  could 
call  to  mind  the  remark  of  the  ancient  chronicler  ' '  Thus 
all  the  trouble  in  the  world  from  Eve  in  the  garden 
and  Helen  of  Troy  down  to  the  conquest  of  Ireland 
has  come  from  a  woman." 

Penn's  second  marriage  lowered  the  prospects  in 


Penn's  Second  Marriage  and  Second  Visit.    371 

life  of  his  three  children  then  living,  carried  him 
into  greater  expenditure  and  deeper  embarrassment, 
dragged  his  friends  and  taxpayers  into  the  hardship 
of  assisting  him,  and  finally  placed  Pennsylvania  under 
a  new  family  with  relatively  no  other  wealth  than  what 
could  be  gotten  out  of  it.  The  three  children,  over 
whom  a  step-mother  was  placed,  were,  in  order  of 
birth,  Springett,  Laetitia,  and  William.  The  eldest 
alone  was  then  grown  up,  but  was  still  single.  He  was 
a  very  satisfactory  heir-apparent,  serious  minded,  very 
much  " after  his  father's  heart."  Springett  died  a 
month  after  the  change  in  his  home.  The  second  son, 
two  years  later,  married  at  the  age  of  nineteen.  Of 
the  object  of  young  William's  "impetuous  inclination," 
his  father  writes  in  1707:  "I  wish  she  had  brought 
more  wisdom,  since  she  brought  so  little  money,  to  help 
the  family."  The  young  man,  by  1703,  when  he  came 
to  Pennsylvania,  jealous  of  his  step-mother  and  her 
children,  and  emancipated  from  his  father,  had  raised 
his  own  set  of  creditors.  Laetitia,  who  was  born  in 
1678,  lived  with  her  father  and  step-mother  until  her 
own  marriage,  Aug.  20,  1702,  with  William  Aubrey, 
afterwards  seeing  her  dowry  delayed,  and  her  legacy 
made  small.  By  Hannah  Callowhill,  William  Penn  had 
seven  children,  being  sixty-four  years  old  when  the 
youngest  was  born. 

Unable  to  meet  the  interest  charges  made  by  Ford, 
and  furthermore  obliged  to  borrow  from  him,  Penn 
made  a  new  conveyance,  dated  Sep.  29, 1696,  of  all  right 
to  Ford  in  fee  clear  of  equity  of  redemption,  Ford 
making  thereupon  a  separate  instrument  covenanting 
to  reconvey  on  payment  of  £10657.  This  sum  was  the 
balance  shown  due  to  him  by  an  account,  to  which  Penn 
did  not  object,  but  which  charged  Penn  with  heavy  com- 
missions, and  compounded  the  interest  on  advances 
every  six  months  or  oftener  at  six  per  cent,  and  fre- 
quently at  eight  per  cent. 


372  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Perm's  liberality  to  the  needy,  his  expenses  in 
soliciting,  and  the  extortion  suffered  by  him  were  esti- 
mated in  1707,  in  his  codicil  to  his  will  of  1705,  to  have 
lessened  his  estate  £50000.  Some  of  the  trouble  taken 
for  individuals  was  pecuniarily  profitable;  for  the 
custom  of  the  time  was  for  those  who  had  access  to 
kings,  cabinet  ministers,  members  of  parliament,  and 
officials  to  exert  influence  or  powers  of  persuasion 
for  men  or  measures,  and  to  receive,  not  wages  or  sal- 
ary, but  presents  if  successful.  Penn,  who  on  another 
page  has  been  called  a  "lobbyist,"  complained  in  1707 
that  John  Hamilton,  whom  Penn  upon  promise  of  a 
present  had  helped  in  England  to  £1650,  would  merely 
deduct  forty  odd  pounds  of  Penn's  debit  to  Governor 
Andrew  Hamilton,  John's  father.  Much,  however,  that 
Penn  did  was  without  tangible,  at  least  without  worldly, 
reward,  or  the  hope  of  it:  and  this  willingness  to  do  a 
favor,  or  habit,  as  we  may  say,  of  doing  one,  seems  to 
have  been  what  led  him  in  April,  1697,  to  deviate  so  far 
from  the  straight  moral  course  as  to  take  part  in  pro- 
ceedings to  deceive  the  English  government  in  the  mat- 
ter of  Ford's  taxes.  Without  such  excuse  as  the  alter- 
native of  spoiling  the  province  would  have  been  for 
quibbling,  or  as  danger  to  Penn's  life  would  have  been 
for  prevarication,  this  is  after  all  the  worst  thing  that 
is  proved  against  Penn,  every  accusation  equally  grave 
being  the  proper  subject  for  the  decision  "not  guilty" 
or  the  Scotch  verdict  "not  proven."  The  proceedings 
in  question,  which  saved  Ford  £300,  probably  a  years' 
support  of  his  family,  must  be  mentioned,  as  they  in- 
volved the  final  conveyancing  between  Penn  and  Ford, 
and  the  settlement  of  the  title  to  what  Penn  had  in 
Pennsylvania  and  Delaware  so  as  to  give  rights  which 
were  never  intended,  but  were  afterwards  pressed, 
turning  this  episode  of  our  history  into  something  like 
a  fable,  say  by  ^Esop,  about  trusting  those  who  would 
cheat  others.    Subsequent  to  the  release  and  covenant 


Penn's  Second  Marriage  and  Second  Visit.    373 

of  Sep.  29,  1696,  which  made  Perm  owner  subject  to  a 
mortgage,  an  Act  of  Parliament  had  levied  a  tax  upon 
real  and  personal  estate  in  England.  To  make  it  ap- 
pear to  the  taxing  officers  that  Ford  was  owner  of  land 
in  America,  which  was  taxable  only  there,  instead  of 
holder  of  bonds  or  other  personalty  or  creditor  of 
money  due,  which  was  taxable  at  his  residence  in  Eng- 
land, as  the  loan  to  Penn  certainly  was,  Penn,  after 
hesitation,  consented  to  convey  to  Ford  in  fee  the  soil 
of  the  Province  and  Territories,  and  to  let  it  be  sup- 
posed that  the  conveyance  was  an  absolute  one,  it  being 
agreed  between  them  that  the  transaction  should  con- 
stitute a  mortgaging,  that  the  money  owed  by  Penn  to 
Ford  should  be  paid  as  the  former  raised  it  out  of  the 
land,  and  that  meanwhile  a  paper  enabling  Penn  to  de- 
mand a  reconveyance  should  be  executed  by  Ford  in  a 
form  ' '  the  better  to  blind  the  business  upon  his  affirma- 
tion. ' '  To  carry  out  the  plan,  Penn  by  a  writing  dated 
April  1,  1697,  released  the  premises  covered  by  the 
document  of  Sept.  29,  1696.  Eight  days  intervened  be- 
fore Penn  had  anything  to  show  that  he  longer  had  any 
interest  in  the  land,  and  Penn  supposed,  as  he  after- 
wards wrote,  that  within  that  time  the  officers  made  the 
examination.  Ford  made  a  lease,  under  date  of  April 
10,  of  the  Province  and  Lower  Counties  to  Penn  for 
four  years  from  April  1,  1697,  at  £630  per  annum  (the 
interest  on  £10500,  to  which  the  debt  of  Sep.  29  had 
been  reduced) ;  and  in  this  lease  was  a  stipulation  that 
Ford  would  convey  the  premises  to  Penn  in  fee,  if  he 
paid  him  £12714  5s.  at  the  end  of  three  years.  A  re- 
ceipt for  £159  of  that  sum  was  appended. 

Penn's  bills  of  exchange  drawn  on  his  America  col- 
lectors and  debtors  in  1697  were  not  honored.  The  600?. 
promised  to  him  in  consideration  of  relinquishing  the 
impost  were  not  paid  in ;  nor  had  any  quit  rents  been 
forwarded  to  him  in  England  since  1686.  Hoping  to 
get  to  America  in  the  Summer  of  1698,  he  meanwhile, 


374  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

in  3rd  month  of  that  year,  went  to  Ireland,  combining 
with  the  inspection  of  his  estate  there,  a  preaching 
tour  among  Friends'  meetings.  Thomas  Story,  who  had 
studied  law,  and  been  converted  to  Quakerism,  and  who 
had  made  Penn's  acquaintance  about  a  year  before, 
attended  him.  As  Story  tells  us  in  his  printed  Journal, 
they  arrived  in  Dublin  from  England  on  3mo.  6,  1698. 
After  three  months'  stay,  they  returned,  and,  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  Autumn,  Story  sailed  for  America, 
Penn  bidding  him  farewell  at  Deptford. 

Story  tells  us  that  while  they  were  in  Ireland, ' '  Satan 
was  busy  in  evil  work  in  London,"  in  that  about  that 
time  some  Quakers,  including  ministers  ' '  setting  up  in 
the  Society  as  no  small  dictators,"  "being  filled  with 
envy"  of  William  Penn,  "made  unworthy  attempts 
against  his  character  and  even  in  the  Yearly  Meeting. ' ' 
What  was  the  particular  subject  of  the  concern  mani- 
fested against  him  in  that  Meeting,  is  not  mentioned. 
It  may  be  inferred  that  William  Mead,  Penn's  old  com- 
panion in  trial,  and  Thomas  Lower  had  become  dis- 
pleased with  him;  as  Logan,  about  eight  years  later, 
spoke  of  them  as  known  to  be  inimical. 

At  last  Penn  complied  with  the  imperative  call  for 
his  presence  in  America,  and  followed  his  often  ex- 
pressed wish  to  be  there. 

The  Eegents  of  England,  commonly  called  the  Lords 
Justices,  at  the  last  interview  he  had  with  them  before 
his  departure,  extracted  a  promise  from  him  to  punish 
David  Lloyd,  and  to  notify  them  of  the  fact  and  char- 
acter of  the  punishment.  They  further,  by  letter  of 
July  25,  1699,  to  the  Proprietary  and  Governor  of 
Pennsylvania,  required  him  to  see  that  the  Acts  of 
Parliament  relating  to  trade  and  navigation  were  put 
into  execution  in  the  country  governed  by  him,  and 
therefore  to  give  constant  protection  and  encourage- 
ment to  the  officers  of  customs  and  of  the  Admiralty. 
On  August  4,  the  Commissioners  for  Trade  recom- 


Penn's  Second  Marriage  and  Second  Visit.    375 

mended  that  Markham  be  removed  from  the  Lieutenant- 
Governorship,  that  David  Lloyd  be  superseded  as  At- 
torney-General, and  removed  from  all  public  employ- 
ment, and  that  Anthony  Morris  be  removed  from  his 
judgeship;  and,  on  August  10,  it  was  further  recom- 
mended that  all  pirates  seized  in  Pennsylvania  and 
West  Jersey  be  sent  to  England  for  trial,  together  with 
the  ' '  evidences ' ' — witnesses  as  well  as  record  of  exami- 
nations ?  The  Lords  Justices,  on  Aug.  31,  formally  dis- 
allowed the  appointment  of  Markham  as  Lieutenant- 
Governor,  and  gave  orders  in  accordance  with  these 
recommendations,  and  declared  void  the  Pennsylvania 
law  for  preventing  frauds  and  other  laws  on  the  subject 
of  the  customs  and  the  Admiralty  contrary  to  the 
known  laws  of  England. 

Meanwhile  Penn  had  succeeded  in  making  a  big  sale, 
by  means  of  which  he  could  transport  his  family,  his 
deeds  of  lease  and  release  to  the  ' '  London  Company, ' ' 
mentioned  in  the  chapter  on  the  People,  being  dated 
respectively  August  11  and  12,  1699;  and  he  had  se- 
cured as  secretary  a  Quaker  then  in  Bristol,  twenty-five 
years  of  age,  James  Logan,  who  had  been  a  school 
teacher,  and  more  recently  in  mercantile  business,  son 
of  Rev.  Patrick  Logan,  a  Scotch  clergyman  converted 
to  Quakerism.  Having  prepared  a  voluminous  address 
to  Friends,  which  was  dated  at  Cowes,  Isle  of  Wight, 
"weighing  anchor,"  7mo.  3, 1699,  Penn  sailed  for  Penn- 
sylvania in  the  ' '  Canterbury, ' '  accompanied  by  his  wife 
and  his  daughter  Laatitia  and  the  secretary.  Whether 
the  secretary  then  or  afterwards  had  any  thoughts  of 
marrying  Laetitia  is  a  matter  of  conjecture,  not  of  his- 
tory. The  secretary  showed  himself  more  of  a  knight 
than  a  Quaker  on  the  voyage.  One  day  a  vessel  which 
was  not  recognized,  bore  down  upon  the  ' '  Canterbury, ' ' 
and  the  crew  of  the  latter  prepared  to  make  resistance. 
As  Penn  retired  below,  Logan  went  to  the  guns.  The 
vessel  turned  out  to  be  friendly.    Logan  rejoining  Penn, 


376  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

the  latter  reproached  Logan  for  his  readiness  to  shed 
blood.  Logan  retorted,  that  if  Penn  had  indeed  disap- 
proved, he,  being  Logan's  master,  should  have  ordered 
him  below.  They  landed  at  Philadelphia  on  Sunday 
afternoon,  Dec.  10,  a  crowd,  including  Quary  and 
Moore,  receiving  them  at  the  wharf,  from  whence  the 
Proprietary  went  to  call  on  Markham,  thus  superseded, 
who  appears  to  have  been  as  usual  too  unwell  to  leave 
his  house.  After  addressing  a  large  gathering  at  the 
Friends '  meeting,  concluding  with  a  prayer,  Penn  took 
his  family  and  his  secretary  to  Edward  Shippen's. 
There  they  stayed  about  a  month — apparently  board- 
ing, as  money  was  subsequently  paid  for  Shippen's 
"entertainment"  of  the  Proprietary  on  his  arrival. 

Penn  secured  for  a  city  residence  the  house,  built  by 
Samuel  Carpenter,  long  known  as  the  "slate  roof 
house,"  at  the  southeast  corner  of  2nd  and  the  present 
Sansom  Street.  There  Hannah  Penn  had  a  son, 
born  on  January  29,  1699-1700,  named  John,  the  only 
male  of  the  Penn  family  born  in  the  New  World.  He 
was  sometimes  referred  to  by  his  father  as  ' *  the  Ameri- 
can," and  is  distinguished  in  history  as  "John  Penn 
the  American"  from  his  two  nephews  named  John. 
Most  of  the  second  visit  of  the  first  Proprietary  to 
Pennsylvania,  however,  was  spent  at  Pennsbury  manor, 
Bucks  County,  Logan  being  left  in  the  "slate  roof 
house. ' '  No  wages  to  Logan  were  paid  at  the  time,  and 
perhaps  the  additional  housekeeping  by  Logan  was 
overlooked,  when  Penn  spoke  later  of  having  spent  in 
Pennsylvania  £1000  per  annum,  having  a  wife,  child 
(Laetitia),  nurse  (the  baby  not  mentioned),  three  maids, 
and  three  or  four  men. 

We  learn  from  two  accounts  hereafter  quoted,  a 
Churchman's  "Brief  Narrative"  and  Logan's  letter  to 
William  Penn  Jr.,  that,  a  few  days  after  the  Proprie- 
tary's arrival,  he  received  Colonel  Quary  and  perhaps 
others  of  the  Churchmen,  and,  admitting  that  there 


Penn's  Second  Makriage  and  Second  Visit.    377 

were  grounds  for  complaint,  declared  that  it  should  be 
his  own  chief  care  and  endeavor  to  administer  justice 
impartially  without  favor  or  affection  in  relation  to 
opinions,  and  to  make  "everything  as  even  as  his  two 
eyes."  Quary,  when  he  saw  the  steps  taken  by  Penn 
and  the  change  brought  about  by  him  in  the  attitude 
towards  the  Crown  officers,  wrote  strongly  in  com- 
mendation of  Penn. 

Anthony  Morris  was  willing  to  sacrifice  himself  to 
enable  Penn  to  comply  with  the  desire  or  requirement 
of  the  English  government;  but  David  Lloyd,  "ex- 
tremely pertinacious  and  somewhat  revengeful,"  had 
no  consideration  for  the  Proprietary's  difficulties,  and 
stoutly  opposed  the  course  essential  to  the  latter 's  in- 
terests, apparently  on  December  21,  1699-1700,  when 
Penn  met  the  Council  for  the  first  time  after  his  arrival. 
Penn  answered  with  much  warmth,  and  enforced  his 
will.    On  Dec.  22,  Morris  brought  before  the  Council  the 
papers  in  the  matter  of  the  replevin,  and  resigned  his 
judgeship,  and  Penn  reprimanded  him  for  issuing  the 
writ,  and  delivered  to  Judge  Quary,  who  appeared  by 
request,  the  inventories  of  the  goods  replevied  and  the 
bonds  given  by  Adams  and  his  sureties.    Penn  asked 
Quary  to  suggest  any  expedients  for  discouraging  and 
punishing  piracy  and  illegal  trade,  and  expressed  a 
hope  that  the  Admiralty  and  the  Proprietary  author- 
ities would  work  hand  in  hand  for  that  purpose.    A 
month  later,  Quary  reported  that  the  surety  refused  to 
hand  over  the  value  of  the  replevied  goods,  and,  the 
Sheriff  who  took  the  bond  being  no  longer  in  Office, 
Quary  asked  for  an  order  that  Morris   restore  the 
goods.     It  was   unreasonable,   Quary   said,   that   the 
Crown  be  put  to  the  expense  of  a  suit  to  recover 
them.     Morris   made   answer   that  he   had   acted  in 
ignorance,  not  in  malice,  and  had  no  interest  in  the 
goods    or   in   their   owner,    and,    in   a   similar   case, 
would   not   again   act  as   he  had   done.     Penn  then 


378  Chkonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

told  Quary  that  the  Admiralty  officers  should  be 
put  in  possession  of  the  value  without  trouble  or 
expense.  Quary  was  asked  what  further  satisfaction 
he  wished  from  Morris.  He  replied,  that,  having  no 
personal  animosity,  he  was  satisfied  with  Morris 's  sub- 
mission, in  view  of  the  Proprietary's  promise.  More 
than  this,  after  making  charges  against  Lloyd,  Quary 
was  willing  to  let  them  drop,  as  will  be  seen. 

For  passing  a  sufficient  law  against  piracy  and  illegal 
trade,  Penn  called  an  Assembly.  With  a  proviso  that 
he  was  not  bound  by  the  Frame  of  Government  of 
1696,  he  issued  a  writ  to  the  Sheriff  of  New  Castle 
to  supply  the  omission  to  choose  Councillors  and  As- 
semblymen the  year  before,  and  summoned  the  Assem- 
blymen already  elected  to  meet  on  the  25th  of  January 
those  to  be  so  chosen.  The  Sheriff  of  New  Castle 
on  that  day  returned  Richard  Halliwell  and  Robert 
French  as  chosen  for  Councillors,  and  John  Healy, 
Adam  Pieterson,  William  Guest,  and  William  Houston 
as  chosen  for  Assemblymen.  It  happened  that  the 
people  along  Brandywine  Creek  had  no  notice  of  the 
election,  and  twenty-nine  petitioners  asked  that  there 
be  a  new  election,  but  the  Proprietary  induced  all  to 
acquiesce  in  the  choice,  by  his  promising  to  punish  the 
Sheriff  for  his  neglect,  and  to  pass  no  other  laws  than 
against  pirates  and  illegal  trade,  and  by  declaring  that 
the  acceptance  of  the  return  should  not  be  deemed  a 
precedent.  After  earnest  debate  for  two  weeks,  the  spe- 
ical  session  passed  a  law  against  piracy  and  also  a  law 
against  illegal  trade,  the  Proprietary  consenting  to  a 
clause  indemnifying  all  persons  who  had  traded  with 
such  pirates  as  had  surrendered  themselves  under  the 
Jamaica  proclamation,  and  the  Assembly  consenting  to 
a  prohibition  of  the  trade  to  Madagascar  and  Natal  for 
three  years. 

Among  the  members  of  Assembly  elected  in  1699 
from  Kent  County  was  Markham's  son-in-law,  the  sus- 


Penn's  Second  Marriage  and  Second  Visit.    379 

pected  Brown.    He  was,  however,  arrested  before  the 
special  session.    Markham  having  offered  to  go  bail, 
but  objecting  to  the  bond  being  so  worded  as  to  bind 
his   executors,   Penn   wrote   a   note   on   January   27, 
1699-00,  reminding  him  that,  if  he  or  his  estate  were 
to  lose  anything  by  Brown  running  away,  it  would  be 
the  only  money  paid  out  as  any  marriage  portion  for 
Markham's  only  child.    A  few  days  later  Markham  is 
mentioned  as  having  gone  bail  in  300?.    The  old  pirates 
who  came  before  Every's  crew,  Penn  had  bound  over 
to  answer  any  charges  which  might  be  made  withm 
one  year.     Bradinham   and  Evans   and,   afterwards, 
Brown  were  sent  to  the  Earl  of  Bellomont,  and  were 
taken  to  England  by  a  man-of-war,  with  Eldridge  and 
five  others,  viz :  Nicholas  Churchill  and  James  Howe, 
who  had  both  sailed  with  Kidd,  Robert  Hickman,  Derby 
Mullens  (or  Mullig),  and  Turlagh  O'Sullivan,  the  last 
named  having  gone  aboard  Every's  vessel  after  all  the 
prizes  had  been  taken,  and  being  at  the  time  of  arrest 
occupied  in  farming  in  New  Jersey.    Although  Penn, 
on  April  12,  examined  some  of  those  accused  of  having 
dealt  with  and  received  goods  from  Kidd,  and  some 
of  them  were  sent  to  New  York,  they  appear  to  have 
been  let  off.    In  England,  Brown  and  Evans  were  ac- 
quitted ;  and  let  us  trust  that  0  'Sullivan  was.    Perhaps 
O'Sullivan  and  Hickman,  as  to  neither  of  whom  has 
there  been  mention  found  in  our  records,  were  never 
indicted.    Evans  soon  afterwards  died.    Brown  may  be 
identical  with  the  "Captain  James  Brown"  selected 
with  others  to  command  ships  which  the  promoters ^of 
the   South   Sea  enterprise— later  called   "Bubble"— 
were  to  send  against  Spanish  localities  and  shipping: 
at  any  rate,  Brown  rejoined  his  wife,  having  later 
three  children,  instead  of  an  only  child,  as  when  sent 
prisoner:  but  he  did  not  manage  to  leave  his  family 
provided  for  at  his  death.     To  convict  Kidd,  it  was 
necessary  to  get  the  testimony  of  some  of  his  compan- 


380  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

ions.  So  Bradinliam  received  a  pardon.  Largely  on 
his  testimony,  Kidd,  Churchill,  Howe,  Mullens,  and 
others  were  found  guilty  of  piracy.  Kidd  was  also 
found  guilty  of  murder,  and,  sentenced  for  both  crimes, 
was  hung.  The  rope  broke,  and  he  was  picked  up 
alive,  and  spoke  to  the  officer,  and  was  hung  again,  that 
time  effectually.    Eldridge  was  also  convicted. 

The  Quaker  traders  had  welcomed  William  Penn  as 
a  deliverer  from  a  party  among  the  colonists  which 
was  building  "steeple-houses" — although  probably 
there  were  no  steeples — and  enforcing  English  laws; 
a  party  which,  moreover,  was  inimical  to  himself. 
When  he  was  seen  not  to  suppress,  but  to  compromise 
with  such  a  ' '  faction, ' '  lending  his  Proprietary  author- 
ity and  personal  influence  to  the  strengthening  of  the 
Crown  officials,  there  was  disappointment,  want  of  in- 
sight into  his  circumstances,  and  coldness  towards  him. 
Instead  of  thinking  of  what  he  had  done  for  Quakers 
in  general  and  those  in  Pennsylvania  in  particular,  the 
latter  were  thinking  how  they  were  injured  in  reputa- 
tion and  unsafe,  and  were  probably  blaming  him  for 
not  taking  better  care  of  them  by  means  of  his  supposed 
influence  at  Court.  Nor  was  their  situation  favorable : 
there  was  the  impossibility  of  a  Quaker  making  the 
statement  to  register  a  vessel ;  and  the  Admiralty  juris- 
diction on  the  Delaware  was  being  extended  by  its 
officers  to  every  private  cause  relating  to  a  vessel,  even 
as  to  charter-parties,  wages,  bread,  beer,  sails,  smith 
work,  carpenter  work  done  at  the  quay  or  dock,  &ct.; 
and  in  such  courts  not  only  were  the  papers  in  Latin, 
but  there  was  simply  a  decision  by  Quary,  and  no  jury 
trial,  and  the  expenses  were  four  times  greater  than  in 
the  courts  of  common  law. 

About  this  time,  a  change  was  made  in  the  agricul- 
ture of  Penn's  dominions.  The  people  had  been  ac- 
customed to  wearing  English  woolens,  and  the  paying 
for  such  had  caused  an  exportation  of  money,  as  the 


Penn's  Second  Marriage  and  Second  Visit.    381 

products  of  the  region  were  not  in  sufficient  demand  by 
England.  To  raise  an  article  which  would  be  required, 
the  planters,  possibly  at  Penn's  suggestion,  began  to 
raise  tobacco  in  considerable  quantity. 

It  was  agreed  that  the  Council  and  Assembly  to  meet 
in  1700  should  be  chosen  according  to  the  old  Frame 
of  1683,  and  should  prepare  a  new  Frame  of  Govern- 
ment. Once  more  the  Councillors  were  to  start  with 
terms  of  three,  two,  and  one  year. 

We  can  conclude  that  there  was  a  rumor  that  some 
member  of  the  Church  of  England  would  be  a  candidate 
at  the  election  in  Philadelphia  County,  and  perhaps 
the  suggestion  had  been  made  in  Penn's  hearing  that 
so  important  a  part  of  the  community  was  entitled  to 
a  seat.  This  is  not  told  us ;  but  that  he  bestirred  him- 
self to  have  a  body  friendly  to  him  chosen,  we  learn 
from  a  contemporary  paper  among  the  MSS.  of  the 
Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel,  entitled  a 
"Brief  Narrative  of  the  Proceedings  of  William 
Penn,"  printed  in  Perry's  Collections,  Vol.  II.  The 
writer,  we  learn  from  Logan's  letter  of  3mo.  2,  1702, 
was  Quary.  He  says  that  Penn  appeared  at  the  place 
of  election,  exhorted  the  voters  to  elect  only  such  as 
were  friends  of  his  government,  asserted  that  no  one 
could  vote  or  be  voted  for  who  would  swear, — an  am- 
biguous word,  as  the  "Narrative"  well  says, — and  even 
told  those  present  that  there  were  not  over  two  dozen 
Churchmen  at  most.  Penn's  speech  on  meeting  the 
new  Councillors  on  April  1,  instead  of  reproving  Quak- 
ers for  narrow-minded  sectarianism,  as  it  appears  to 
do,  may  have  referred  to  the  Churchmen,  in  saying 
that  he  was  grieved  to  hear  some  at  the  last  election 
at  Philadelphia  "make  it  a  matter  of  religion. ' '  Logan 
two  years  after  the  election  procured  certificates  of  non- 
Quakers  that  Penn  did  not  speak  about  swearing,  and 
inferentially  that  he  did  not  influence  the  election. 
Carpenter,  Shippen,  and  Dr.  Griffith  Owen,  Quakers 


382  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

friendly  to  Penn,  were  chosen  for  three  years,  two 
years,  and  one  year  respectively  by  Philadelphia 
County.  In  Bucks  and  Chester,  it  would  have  been 
hard  to  find  a  non-Quaker  fit  to  send.  Bucks  chose 
Growdon,  Biles,  and  Richard  Hough;  Chester  chose 
Lloyd,  Pusey,  and  Simcock.  Of  the  Delaware  members 
of  the  Council,  viz :  Halliwell,  Donnaldson,  and  Yeates 
from  New  Castle,  John  Walker,  Henry  Molleston,  and 
Thomas  Bedwell  from  Kent,  and  Samuel  Preston,  John 
Hill,  and  Thomas  Fen  wick  from  Sussex,  we  know  that 
Preston  was  a  Quaker.  Every  Assemblyman  chosen 
from  the  Upper  Counties  was  a  Quaker;  and  perhaps 
three  or  four  of  those  chosen  by  the  Lower.  The  new 
Assembly  organized  on  May  13,  with  Blunston  again 
Speaker. 

On  May  15,  Penn  and  the  Council,  by  unanimous  vote, 
suspended  Lloyd  from  that  body,  pending  his  trial  on 
the  charge  of  making  the  remarks  about  the  great  seal, 
the  King's  picture,  and  the  Court  of  Admiralty.  Such 
trial  did  not  take  place:  for  Quary,  to  whom  Penn  re- 
ferred the  prosecution  of  Lloyd  before  the  Quarter 
Sessions,  became  disposed,  in  the  absence  of  orders 
from  England,  to  overlook  Lloyd's  offence,  and  hoped 
to  receive  no  orders,  remarking  what  a  loss  it  would 
be  if  the  colony  were  deprived  of  its  only  lawyer  except 
John  Moore. 

On  May  24,  a  committee  composed  of  all  the  Coun- 
cillors and  Assemblymen  presented  to  the  Proprietary 
the  draft  of  such  a  charter  as  they  desired  for  a  Frame 
of  Government.  On  June  4,  he  submitted  to  a  sub- 
committee such  a  one  as  he  was  willing  to  grant.  This 
the  Assembly  amended  in  some  particulars;  but  there 
was  a  conflict  between  the  Upper  and  Lower  Counties 
as  to  the  number  of  representatives.  On  the  last  day 
of  the  session,  eight  laws  were  passed,  one  of  them 
levying  Id.  per  I.  and  65.  per  head  for  the  debts  of  the 
government.     Penn  had   called  the   attention  of  his 


Penn's  Second  Makriage  and  Second  Visit.    383 

friends  to  the  "worsting"  of  his  estate  by  his  main- 
taining his  Deputy, — that  must  mean  Blackwell  and 
Markham, — and  protested,  that,  although  some  said 
that  he,  Penn,  came  to  get  money,  and  be  gone,  he  hoped 
that  he  or  his  while  they  lived  would  dwell  with  his 
people,  for  his  absence  had  been  disastrous  to  him  as 
well  as  to  the  colonists.  He  broadly  hinted  that  as  they 
treated  him,  so  would  he  serve  them  in  return.  An 
attempt  was  made  by  his  friends  to  secure  for  him 
from  the  Assembly  money  to  be  raised  by  a  general  tax, 
but  this  was  voted  down,  and,  instead  of  it,  an  impost 
was  laid  for  his  benefit  on  imported  wine,  beer,  ale,  &ct. 
This,  continued  during  two  years,  would,  it  was  said, 
yield  him  1000Z.  per  an.,  but  Isaac  Norris,  member  from 
Philadelphia  County,  thought  it  to  amount  to  an  "un- 
handsome ' '  gift  of  less  than  half  of  that  sum.  On  June 
7,  after  approving  of  the  laws  carried,  Penn,  despairing 
of  inducing  an  agreement  upon  a  new  charter,  put  the 
question  to  the  Assemblymen,  with  the  consent  of  the 
Council,  would  they  be  ruled  by  the  old  Charter?  This 
was  carried  in  the  negative.  He  then  asked,  should 
he  resume  the  government  as  it  was  after  the  Act  of 
Union  under  the  letters  patent  from  Charles  II.  All 
who  voted  except  four  or  five  of  the  whole  number  of 
Councillors  and  Assemblymen  answered  in  the  affirma- 
tive: evidently  the  necessary  six  sevenths  of  the  free- 
men's representatives  agreed  not  merely  to  amend,  but 
to  destroy.  It  was  then  unanimously  declared  that  all 
the  laws  passed  at  Chester,  and  embodied  in  the  Peti- 
tion of  Eight  of  1693,  and  all  since  made,  and  the  one 
just  passed  for  confirming  the  laws,  should,  except  as 
repealed,  altered,  or  supplied,  continue  in  force  until 
twenty  days  after  the  rising  of  the  next  session.  Then 
the  Speaker,  on  behalf  of  the  Assembly,  and  Biles,  on 
behalf  of  the  Councillors  from  the  Upper  Counties,  and 
Hill  and  Eodeney,  on  behalf  of  those  from  the  Terri- 
tories, took  the  old  Charter  of  1683,  constituting  the 


384  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Frame,  and,  with  the  unanimous  consent  of  those  pres- 
ent, returned  it  to  the  Proprietary,  who,  in  undertaking 
to  rule  by  the  royal  letters  patent  and  Act  of  Union, 
and  bidding  farewell  to  those  present,  said  that  he 
would  endeavor  to  give  them  satisfaction,  and  advised 
them  not  to  be  easily  displeased  one  with  another,  to  be 
slow  to  anger,  and  swift  to  charity. 

On  June  25,  the  Proprietary,  thus  untrammelled  as 
Governor,  sent  for  Shippen,  Carpenter,  Moll,  Turner, 
Owen,  Clark,  Pusey,  and  Growdon  to  come  to  his  house 
in  Philadelphia.  To  those  appearing,  he  said  that  it 
was  not  fit  that  he  should  be  without  a  Council,  and  he 
had  chosen  them  to  belong  to  one.  They  then  signed  a 
qualification,  which  he  had  prepared.  Those  who  were 
absent  that  day  signed  subsequently,  and  Thomas  Story 
was  admitted  and  qualified  on  the  26th,  Penn  making 
him  also  Master  of  the  Rolls.  Of  these  nine,  Moll  alone 
represented  the  Swedish  or  Dutch  element;  all  the 
others  belonged  to  the  Society  of  Friends,  except 
Turner,  the  Keithian. 

A  few  days  before  this,  one  of  the  commissions  being 
dated  June  20,  1700,  the  Proprietary  undertook  to 
appoint  Water  Bailiffs,  commissioning  two  of  the 
Sheriffs  as  such,  authorizing  them  to  execute  upon  the 
river  or  waters  of  the  Delaware  from  end  to  end  of 
their  respective  counties  all  writs  and  other  process 
upon  any  person  or  ship  or  goods  from  any  court  of 
record.  The  occasion  was  that  a  vessel  in  port  had 
fired  through  a  house  in  the  middle  of  the  quay.  Quary 
was  absent,  but  Moore  called  the  Proprietary's  atten- 
tion to  the  affair,  but  the  Proprietary  found  it  an  acci- 
dent; nevertheless  he  perceived  the  danger  of  there 
being  no  one  to  enforce  law  upon  the  river.  Quary,  on 
his  return,  complained  to  Penn :  if  the  latter  could  take 
the  rivers,  Quary  must  lose  all  authority ;  for  his  com- 
mission as  Judge  of  Vice  Admiralty  did  not  extend  to 
the  high  seas.    Penn  told  the  Sheriffs,  one  of  whom 


Penn's  Second  Marriage  and  Second  Visit.    385 

had  served  only  two  writs  as  Water  Bailiff,  and  the 
other  had  served  none,  to  forbear  acting  in  such  capac- 
ity until  further  order,  but  Penn  contended  for  his  right 
to  make  the  appointment,  offering  to  have  the  same 
decided  by  the  Admiralty  in  England.  This  not  being 
taken  up,  the  Proprietary,  on  leaving,  granted  the  same 
powers  to  the  Corporation  of  the  City,  and  in  July, 
1702,  the  Attorney-General  and  Advocate-General  in 
England  gave  their  opinion  that  the  commissioning  of 
a  Water  Bailiff  to  act  upon  the  rivers  within  a  county, 
but  not  on  the  high  seas,  was  in  fact  appointing  a  Sher- 
iff, and  not  an  interference  with  the  Admiralty.  The  ab- 
sence of  Quary  for  months  at  a  time  upon  private  busi- 
ness, besides  his  attention  to  duties  away  from  Phila- 
delphia, kept  him  rather  clear  of  the  clashing  of  the 
other  Churchmen  with  the  Quakers,  and,  while  irritated 
at  times  by  Penn's  meddling  with  the  exercise  of  Ad- 
miralty power,  Quary  kept  on  civil  terms  with  Penn 
throughout  the  latter 's  stay. 

Randolph,  in  "  Articles  of  High  Crimes  and  Mis- 
demeanors charged  upon  the  Governors  of  several 
Proprieties  [Proprietary  provinces],"  read  to  the 
Commissioners  for  Trade  on  Mch.  24,  1700-1,  says  that 
not  long  before  he  wrote,  two  persons  had  been  tried 
and  condemned  in  the  Lower  Counties,  the  Judges  and 
juries  not  being  sworn,  and  the  condemned  had  been 
executed,  while  in  Pennsylvania  proper  one  person  had 
been  tried,  condemned,  and  executed,  the  Judge  and 
jury  not  being  sworn.  All  this  seems  to  have  taken 
place  before  the  arrival  of  Penn. 

The  great  change  which  had  taken  place  within  ten 
years  in  the  character  of  the  immigration  made  the 
question  of  oaths  of  more  practical  importance  than 
merely  enabling  Randolph  to  pick  a  flaw,  or  embarrass- 
ing the  punctilious  Quary,  or  letting  anti-Quakers  pre- 
tend that  they  as  a  class  were  in  greater  danger  than 
the  other  inhabitants.     When  so  moral  a  community 

25 


386  Chronicles  op  Pennsylvania. 

as  the  Quaker  settlers  filled  at  least  the  Upper  Coun- 
ties, it  was  safe  to  take  the  word  of  a  neighbour 
solemnly  promising  to  speak  the  truth;  in  fact  even 
the  promising  provided  for  by  the  law  of  1682  seemed 
a  superfluous  formality,  for  a  good  Quaker  or  any 
right-minded  man  would,  when  justice  was  involved, 
tell  the  truth  without  promising  to  do  so:  but  there 
were  now  coming  men  of  inferior  conscience,  of  indif- 
ference to  justice  and  virtue,  and  glad  to  find  in  their 
not  being  under  oath  an  excuse  for  helping  an  asso- 
ciate. The  customs  officers,  dependent,  as  they  neces- 
sarily were,  upon  the  testimony  of  just  such  men,  doubt- 
less were  having  increased  difficulty  in  the  enforcement 
of  the  severe  laws,  when  the  testimony  was  not  sworn 
to :  and  all  citizens  might  well  feel  themselves  in  danger 
from  the  animosity  of  future  witnesses  who  were  not 
reminded  of  their  accountability  to  God.  When  a  man's 
liberty  or  property,  and  particularly  when  his  life  de- 
pends upon  the  story  told  by  some  low  character,  it  is 
necessary  to  take  great  precautions  against  falsehood, 
and  some  persons  who  can  not  be  terrorized  by  human 
laws  against  false  witness  can  be  controlled  by  relig- 
ious, perhaps  what  the  reader  may  call  superstitious, 
fears.  The  "hot  Church  party"  would  doubtless  have 
liked  to  see,  mainly,  perhaps,  for  the  strangulation  of 
Quakerism,  the  abolition  of  all  affirmations,  but,  this 
being  impossible,  wanted,  for  individual  protection,  the 
affirmations  to  have  the  form  and  limited  use  men- 
tioned in  the  English  statute  of  7  &  8  Wm.  Ill  allowing 
Quakers  to  affirm :  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  extreme 
Quakers  in  Pennsylvania  set  themselves  against  any 
mention  of  God  in  the  attestation. 

We  learn  from  the  aforesaid  "Brief  Narrative"  in 
Perry's  Collections  that,  after  the  Assembly  had  ad- 
journed, Penn  declared  it  his  pleasure  that  some  of  the 
Churchmen  should  have  a  share  in  the  government,  and 
induced  three  of  the  Vestry  of  Christ  Church  to  accept 


Penn's  Second  Marriage  and  Second  Visit.    387 

seats  on  the  bench  for  the  County  of  Philadelphia,  the 
other  Justices  then  appointed  being  ' '  six  strong  Foxian 
Quakers,  one  Swede,  and  a  sweet  Singer  of  Israeli." 
It  can  be  made  out  from  Logan's  letter  of  3rd  mo.  2, 
1702,  that  Andrew  Bankson  was  the  Swede,  and  that 
John  Moll  was  the  Sweet  Singer  of  Israel.  Moll,  from 
Amsterdam,  after  residing  at  the  Delaware  settlement 
for  a  number  of  years,  was  one  of  the  Labadist 
grantees  of  part  of  Herman's  Bohemia  manor  in  1684, 
and  was  mentioned  with  others  in  1692  as  living  on 
Bohemia  River  "peaceably  and  religiously."  The 
Labadists  were  the  flock  of  Jean  de  Labadie,  a  native 
of  France,  who  had  been  a  Jesuit,  and  favored  by 
Richelieu,  but  became  a  Reformed  minister,  and  emi- 
grated to  Holland  after  inculcating  pietism  and  mysti- 
cism, and  ultimately  established  himself  at  Altona. 
Transferring  themselves  to  the  region  between  Dela- 
ware Bay  and  the  Chesapeake,  some  members  of  his 
congregation  lived  together  some  years  as  an  industrial 
religious  fraternity.  The  application  of  the  name 
"Sweet  Singers  of  Israel"  to  the  Labadists  is  not 
otherwise  known,  but  seems  in  line  with  the  fact  that 
Jasper  Danckaerts,  their  leader  in  Maryland,  had  trans- 
lated the  Psalms  into  rhyme  in  Low  Dutch. 

When  the  first  quarter  session  after  the  appointment 
of  these  Justices  was  held,  the  first  person  called  upon 
to  give  evidence  asked  that  he  be  sworn.  Some  may 
question  whether  this  was  done  in  good  faith,  but  the 
"Brief  Narrative"  meets  the  objection  by  the  state- 
ment that  oaths  had  been  administered  in  such  court 
ever  since  Penn  received  the  government  from  King 
Charles  II,  Judges  qualified  to  administer  them  being 
appointed,  but  the  statement  that  these  very  Quakers 
had  been  on  the  bench  may  be  incorrect  as  to  Shippen, 
who  was  not  an  old  resident.  It  is  more  likely  that  the 
administration  of  oaths,  since  the  grant  to  Penn,  had 
started  upon  the  enacting  of  Fletcher's  law,  which  had 


388  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

not  been  repealed,  and  which,  by  using  the  word  "may" 
instead  of  "shall,"  had  altered  the  requirement  of 
qualifying  by  merely  promising  into  a  permission  to 
qualify  in  that  manner.  On  the  present  occasion,  the 
Episcopalian  Justices  said  that  the  demand  was  reason- 
able, and  that  they  supposed  themselves  appointed  for 
the  purpose  of  administering  oaths  to  those  who  were 
willing  to  take  them.  The  Quakers  interposed,  declar- 
ing that  they  could  not  conscientiously  remain  where 
an  oath  was  being  taken.  The  Churchmen  urged  that 
it  was  only  fair  that  others  as  well  as  Quakers  should 
have  the  liberty  of  giving  evidence  according  to  their 
own  way ;  and  finally  proposed  that  the  affirmation  al- 
lowed to  the  Quakers  in  England  by  Act  of  7  &  8 
William  III  be  used,  viz:  "I.  A.  B.  do  declare  in  the 
presence  of  Almighty  God  the  witness  of  the  truth  of 
what  I  say."  The  Quaker  Justices  declared  that  this 
naming  of  God  made  the  affirmation  objectionable,  and 
that,  as  was  perfectly  true,  the  Act  of  Parliament  gov- 
erned only  in  the  places  it  named,  England,  Wales,  and 
Berwick.  Penn  "outwardly,"  says  the  "Narrative," 
but  surely  with  a  sincere  wish  for  harmony,  endeavored 
to  induce  the  Quakers  to  recede  from  their  position, 
telling  them  that  he  had  taken  the  affirmation  in  Eng- 
land, and  that  they  could  sit  on  the  bench  while  an  oath 
was  being  taken,  without  being  concerned  in  it.  The 
fact  was  that  these  of  his  co-religionists  had  more 
radical  ideas  and  stronger  wills  than  his.  He  could  not 
control  them,  but  was  compelled  to  fight  on  their  side. 
He  had  accomplished  much  in  inducing  the  Quakers  in 
power  in  the  Province,  men  not  at  all  amenable  to  fear, 
and  little  to  expediency,  to  comply  with  the  require- 
ments of  the  home  government  that  Morris  and  Lloyd 
should  cease  to  hold  office.  It  is  clear  that  the  Proprie- 
tary had  pressed  his  influence  as  far  as  it  would  go. 
The  attitude  of  the  Assembly  further  warned  him  that 
he  was  not  master  of  the  money-voting  power.     The 


Penn's  Second  Marriage  and  Second  Visit.    389 

"Narrative"  says:  "The  scene  was  presently  changed 
by  making  his  personall  appearance  in  the  courte  lay- 
ing the  whole  blame  upon  the  Churchmen,  ...  in 
so  much  that  he  must  be  constrained  to  ride  up  &  down 
the  country,  and  shew  his  letters  patent  to  satisfy  the 
people  of  his  authority  .  .  .  ."  Possibly,  as  we 
have  not  heard  Penn's  side  in  the  affair,  there  was 
something  to  call  for  this  in  the  Churchmen's  argument. 
Declaring  that  he  had  palatine  powers,  which  was  cor- 
rect, and  claiming  that  the  province  had  been  given  to 
him  to  relieve  his  people  from  oaths,  he  caused  a  new 
commission  to  be  read  appointing  the  six  Quakers,  the 
Swede,  and  the  Sweet  Singer,  and  leaving  out  the 
Churchmen.  Two  years  later,  when  the  charges  em- 
bodied in  the  "Narrative"  were  heard  of  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, four  of  the  Quakers  concerned  made  an  affidavit, 
spoken  of  in  Logan's  letter  before  mentioned,  as  an 
answer  about  turning  out  the  magistrates.  The  other 
Quakers  were  John  Jones,  who  in  1702  was  in  Barbados, 
and  John  Bevan,  who,  residing  in  another  county,  never 
served.  The  certificates  and  affidavits  contradicting  the 
"Narrative"  have  not  been  found,  and  their  scope  and 
force  can  not  be  observed. 

Feeling  the  necessity  for  a  written  constitution,  for 
a  law  of  property,  and  for  a  tax  for  the  support  of  the 
government  and  the  payment  of  public  debts,  Penn 
summoned  an  Assembly  of  four  from  each  county 
chosen  on  October  1,  1700.  Several  of  the  Councillors 
were  elected  Assemblymen,  and  were  temporarily  ex- 
cused from  service  in  the  Council.  Humphrey  Morrey, 
Richard  Halliwell,  Jasper  Yeates—  the  two  last  being 
non-Quakers, — and  Phineas  Pemberton,  William  Biles, 
and  John  Blunston,  Quakers,  entered  the  Council  about 
this  time.  Growdon  was  Speaker  of  the  Assembly. 
The  session  was  at  New  Castle,  and  one  hundred  and 
nine  laws  were  passed,  Penn  duly  publishing  them 
under  the  great  seal  on  November  27.    Most  of  them 


390  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

were  re-enactments  or  slight  modifications  of  the  laws 
in  the  Petition  of  Right.  An  allowance  was  established 
for  each  member  of  the  Assembly  of  6s.  for  each  day 
of  attendance,  and  3d.  per  mile  travelling,  the  Speak- 
er's daily  allowance  being  10s.  There  was  some  adjust- 
ment of  the  matter  of  oaths,  thus :  the  radical  Quaker 
formula  of  promising  to  perform  official  duty  was  fol- 
lowed in  an  act  directing  the  attests  of  several  officers, 
jurors,  and  attorneys,  but  a  section  was  added  that  a 
magistrate  who  had  no  scruples  against  administering 
an  oath  should  be  allowed  to  do  so  to  those  who  were 
free  to  take  it;  a  clause  to  salve  the  conscience  of 
Quaker  Justices  was  inserted,  that  the  act  should  be 
deemed  that  of  the  magistrate  alone,  and  so  entered  on 
record,  but  be  as  valid  as  if  done  in  the  name  of  the 
court;  Fletcher's  law  allowing  testimony  by  "solemnly 
promising"  was  re-enacted.  The  promise  for  the  at- 
torneys was  so  thorough-going  as  to  discourage  any 
conscientious  observer  of  it  from  practising  law.  The 
sum  of  2000?.  was  voted  to  Penn.  It  was  apportioned 
among  the  counties,  no  two  paying  the  same  amount, 
and  was  to  be  raised  by  assessing  on  all  estates  with 
some  exceptions  as  much  as  would  be  required,  with  a 
poll  tax  of  4s.  on  every  person  not  otherwise  rated,  to 
make  up  the  county's  share.  Although  Penn  may  have 
been  worth  this  much  to  the  People,  and  certainly  to 
those  who  enjoyed  civic  importance  under  him,  yet  the 
tax  was  not  popular,  and  was  not  paid  with  alacrity, 
and,  before  the  following  July,  many,  for  one  reason  or 
another,  refused  to  pay  it. 

It  was  also  enacted  that  any  person  speaking,  acting, 
or  writing  anything  tending  to  sedition  ' '  or  disaffection 
to  this  government"  or  disturbance  of  the  peace,  or 
spreading  false  news  tending  thereto,  should  be  im- 
prisoned three  months,  or  fined  not  less  than  51.,  in  the 
discretion  of  the  Justices  of  the  County  Court.  This 
law  was  repealed  by  Queen  Anne. 


Penn's  Second  Marriage  and  Second  Visit.    391 

Among  these  laws  of  November  27,  1700,  was  one 
fixing  the  number  of  Assemblymen  from  each  county 
at  four,  and  prescribing  the  qualification  for  voters  and 
Assemblymen,  as  follows:  a  native  born  subject  of 
England  or  one  naturalized  either  in  England  or  the 
Province  (meaning  the  Lower  Counties  as  well),  of 
age  and  wealth  as  in  Markham's  Frame  of  1696,  also 
resident  two  years  before  the  election.  This  qualifica- 
tion, confirmed  and  re-enacted,  remained  requisite  in 
Pennsylvania  until  the  American  Revolution. 

Fletcher's  marriage  law  of  1693  allowed  marriages 
in  the  parties '  religious  society,  or  by  persons  author- 
ized by  the  Church  of  England  and  observing  the  laws 
and  usages  of  England,  to  be  without  the  otherwise 
required  presentation  to  a  religious  society  or  Justice 
of  a  certificate  of  clearness  of  all  engagements,  and 
affixing  to  the  door  of  a  court  house  or  meeting-house 
a  declaration  of  intention  one  month  before  solemniza- 
tion, which  solemnization  was  to  be  by  taking  for  hus- 
band and  wife  in  presence  of  twelve  witnesses,  one 
being  a  Justice.  As  declarations  had  been  put  up  at 
night,  and  taken  down  in  the  morning,  and  banns  had 
been  given  out  where  the  parties  were  unknown,  one 
act  of  Nov.  27,  1700,  required  the  date  of  affixing  to  be 
added  by  a  Justice,  and  made  such  affixing  necessary 
also  for  marriages  in  a  religious  society.  Penalties 
were  prescribed  in  case  of  marriage  of  a  servant 
without  the  master's  consent.  Any  person  marrying 
or  joining  in  marriage  contrary  to  the  act  was  to  pay 
101.  to  the  Proprietary;  the  "persons  so  joining  others 
in  marriage"  were  to  forfeit  201.  to  the  Proprietary, 
and  pay  damages  to  the  party  aggrieved.  Ecclesias- 
tical canon,  however,  provided  for  the  marriage  of  per- 
sons of  full  age,  not  within  the  prohibited  degrees,  if 
banns  had  been  given  out  three  times.  The  Vestry 
of  Christ  Church  under  date  of  Jany.  28,  1700-1,  made 
a  representation  to  the  Lords  for  Trade  against  royal 


392  Chronicles  op  Pennsylvania. 

allowance  of  this  act,  as  interfering  with  the  free  exer- 
cise of  the  Churchmen's  religion.  The  representation 
made  mention  also  of  there  being  no  militia  or  military 
commissions  outstanding  or  any  gun  mounted,  while 
taxes  had  been  imposed  to  give  Penn  large  sums,  also 
of  the  law  about  speaking  or  writing  against  the  gov- 
ernment, and  of  the  interpretation  being  in  the  hands 
of  Quakers,  there  not  being  one  magistrate  belonging 
to  the  Church  of  England,  and  of  the  attestation  tend- 
ing to  deprive  the  Churchmen  of  having  lawyers,  and 
furthermore  of  the  Quakers  being  less  in  number  than 
the  non-Quakers.  This  estimate,  very  different  from 
Penn's,  may  have  related  to  the  whole  dominion,  in- 
cluding the  Lower  Counties;  and  Penn's,  only  to  Penn- 
sylvania proper. 

The  one  known  case  of  sentence  under  the  aforesaid 
act  was  where  the  master  abetted  the  marriage  of  his 
servants.  John  Keble,  planter  in  Kent  County,  had 
procured  certain  of  his  servants  to  be  married  at  his 
house  by  an  Anglican  minister,  whom  he  was  en- 
tertaining. The  minister  was  prosecuted,  and  fined 
201.,  according  to  the  act,  and  was  obliged  to  keep 
away  from  Keble 's,  to  avoid  imprisonment  for  not 
paying;  while  Keble 's  affidavit,  put  in  shape  by  the 
Vestry  of  Christ  Church,  speaks  of  himself  being  prose- 
cuted, and  of  his  suffering  distraint  to  the  value  of  14Z. 
Is.  This  was  resented  as  an  interference  with  the 
Church  of  England;  and  Bp.  Compton  objected  on  Dec. 
29,  1701,  to  the  act  as  making  it  impossible  for  any  but 
Quakers  to  live  in  the  country  subject  to  it,  probably 
not  only  from  the  canon's  silence  as  to  the  master's 
consent,  but  because  the  people  of  other  religious  so- 
cieties, having  scarcely  a  house  of  worship  in  any 
neighbourhood  or  a  minister  in  the  whole  dominion, 
could  be  married  under  their  own  form  only  as  sud- 
den opportunity  offered. 


Penn's  Second  Marriage  and  Second  Visit.    393 

The  requirements  of  this  law  figured  in  the  case  of  a 
young  Quaker  in  prison  upon  the  charge  of  the  capital 
crime  of  rape.  The  woman,  having  made  the  charge, 
but  being  told  that  a  wife  could  not  testify  against  her 
husband,  was  induced  to  marry  the  culprit,  so  as  to 
save  his  life  by  disqualifying  herself  as  a  witness.  No 
publication  of  intention  one  month  previously  could  be 
made.  She  went  to  the  prison,  and  married  him  there, 
and  a  certificate  under  the  hands  of  thirteen  persons 
was  duly  made.  The  law  of  marriage  was  deemed  vio- 
lated, but  the  bridegroom  was  admitted  to  bail,  as 
likely  to  be  acquitted,  and,  in  view  of  the  opinion  of 
both  of  the  two  lawyers  in  the  colony,  was  never  tried. 

Apart  from  requiring  an  oath  for  registering  vessels, 
which  Penn  was  endeavoring  to  have  cured  by  an  Act 
of  Parliament,  the  Trade  and  Navigation  laws,  as  we 
have  seen,  were  very  harsh,  whether  enforced  by  rea- 
son of  the  cupidity  or  the  sense  of  duty  of  the  Crown's 
local  representatives  for  such  matters.  A  particularly 
hard  case  was  that  of  the  ship  "Providence,"  Capt. 
John  Lumby,  owned  by  residents  of  Hull.  Although 
entitled  to  registration  as  an  English  vessel,  she  had 
sailed  without  registration  papers.  Intending  to  put 
in  to  Virginia  or  Maryland,  in  stress  after  five  months 
at  sea,  but,  mistaking  the  capes  of  Delaware  Bay  for 
those  of  the  Chesapeake,  Lumby  had  brought  her 
within  the  jurisdiction  of  Quary,  and  had  begun  to 
break  bulk.  Moore,  the  Advocate,  acting  as  informer, 
she  and  her  cargo  had  been  seized  before  Penn's  visit. 
The  sympathy  of  the  trading  community  being  particu- 
larly excited  by  the  affair,  disinterested  merchants 
offered  to  go  security  for  answering  in  the  Court  of 
Admiralty  in  England,  if  the  voyage  were  allowed  to 
be  continued.  After  argument  and  trial,  in  which 
Lumby 's  evidence  to  excuse  himself  was  not  able  to  be 
admitted,  Quary,  as  Admiralty  Judge,  had  felt  bound 
to  decree  condemnation;  the  law  absolutely  requiring 


394  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

a  register,  and,  moreover,  the  waiving  of  it  in  any  case 
tending  to  making  the  law  a  dead  letter.  Quary  was 
liable  to  removal,  if  not  further  punishment,  for  any 
neglect  to  give  the  King  his  right.  Recognizing  that 
this  case  was  a  hard  one,  Quary  did  not  speedily  order 
a  sale,  but  sent  the  goods  to  the  King's  store,  and  left 
the  vessel  in  the  captain's  care,  while  a  merchant  going 
to  England  undertook  to  obtain  relief.  He  appears  to 
have  notified  Penn,  but  was  reported  to  have  failed. 
After  nine  or  ten  months,  the  goods  beginning  to  de- 
teriorate, Quary  caused  an  appraisement  as  low  as  pos- 
sible to  be  made;  and  the  captain,  about  July,  1700, 
wishing  to  buy  the  ship,  Quary  arranged  that  the  in- 
former would  compound  cheaply  for  his  third,  and 
Penn  agreed  to  give  his  third,  leaving  the  King  alone 
interested  in  the  proceeds  of  sale.  Before  the  scheme 
could  be  carried  out,  there  arrived  an  inhibition  from 
the  High  Court  of  Admiralty  in  England  for  the  pur- 
pose of  having  the  case  heard  there.  The  High  Court 
confirmed  Quary 's  judgment  of  condemnation.  On  an 
order  from  the  High  Court,  Penn  had  his  third  ap- 
praised, and  so  the  value  of  the  King's  third  was  shown 
to  be  greater,  making  the  low  appraisement  look  sus- 
picious. Penn's  and  the  informer's  thirds  were  handed 
over  in  kind  to  them  respectively,  Penn's  going  to  the 
owners.  The  goods  left  for  the  King  and  those  de- 
livered to  the  informer  were  put  up  for  sale,  and  the 
former  owners  were  obliged  to  let  them  go,  or  pay  high 
for  them.  Quary  combatted  before  the  Board  of  Trade, 
Penn's  subsequent  representations  (printed  with  Penn 
and  Logan  Correspondence)  as  to  Quary 's  conduct  in 
this  matter. 

A  letter  from  the  King  ordering  a  contribution  of 
£350  sterling  towards  erecting  forts  on  the  frontiers  of 
New  York  &ct.,  obliged  Penn  to  summon  the  prorogued 
Assembly  to  meet  on  August  1,  1701.  When  the  mem- 
bers appeared  before  him,  he  apologized  for  bringing 


Penn's  Second  Marriage  and  Second  Visit.    395 

them  together  at  that  season  of  the  year,  and  asked 
them  to  give  serious  consideration  to  the  message  from 
the  King.  In  a  few  days,  the  Speaker  returned  an- 
swer, that,  by  reason  of  the  expenditure  by  the  in- 
habitants in  settling,  and  the  great  sums  lately  assessed 
in  imposts  and  taxes,  and  the  arrears  of  quit  rents, 
the  present  capacity  would  hardly  admit  of  levying 
money  at  that  time,  and,  as  it  was  understood  that  the 
adjacent  colonies  had  done  nothing,  the  members  hoped 
that  the  matter  would  be  postponed,  and  that  repre- 
sentation would  be  made  to  the  King  of  their  condi- 
tion and  willingness  according  to  ability  to  answer  as 
far  as  religious  persuasion  would  permit.  Seven  mem- 
bers from  the  Lower  Counties,  viz:  Halliwell,  Robert 
French,  Yeates,  John  Healy,  John  Brinckloe,  John 
Hill,  and  Luke  Wattson  Jr.,  made  a  separate  address, 
asking  that  no  contribution  be  expected  for  forts 
abroad,  until  they  were  able  to  build  some  at  home,  they 
being  daily  threatened  with  war,  but  unable  to  furnish 
themselves  with  arms  and  ammunition,  having  used 
up  their  money  "in  making  tobacco,  which  hath  proved 
very  advantageous  for  the  Kingdom  of  England,"  yet 
the  King's  Majesty  had  not  taken  notice  of  them  "in 
the  way  of  protection,"  for  they  had  neither  standing 
militia  nor  persons  empowered  to  command  the  people 
in  case  of  invasion.  "With  such  opposition  from  both 
elements  in  the  Assembly,  Penn  could  do  nothing  but 
dissolve  the  body.  He  wrote  or  had  written  to  the 
Governor  of  New  York,  that,  even  if  he,  Penn,  were 
obliged  to  pay  the  money  out  of  his  own  pocket,  it 
should  not  be  wanting  for  the  King's  service.  The 
Governor  replied  that  he  needed  neither  men  nor 
money,  but  Col.  Kramer,  the  engineer  whom  the  New 
Englanders  kept  from  him. 

On  6,  21,  1701,  Penn  received  news  by  the  ship 
"Messenger"  of  efforts  to  procure  an  act  of  Parlia- 
ment   uniting    all    Proprietary    governments    to    the 


396  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Crown,  a  bill  for  that  purpose  having  been  already 
introduced  into  the  House  of  Lords.  It  was  thought 
inevitable  that  it  would  pass  at  the  next  session,  unless 
Penn  went  to  England  to  fight  it.  On  the  next  day, 
the  Council  agreed  to  have  Assemblymen  chosen  on  the 
4th  of  September  to  meet  on  the  15th. 

For  his  assistance,  subscriptions  were  sought 
through  the  gatherings  of  Friends  for  the  Monthly 
Meetings,  the  subscribers  to  be  reimbursed  with  land 
near  the  Susquehanna. 

At  the  meeting  of  the  Assembly,  Penn  told  of  the 
necessity  for  him  to  leave,  and  his  resolution  to  return, 
and  to  settle  his  posterity  in  Pennsylvania:  he  asked 
the  members  to  think  of  some  suitable  provision  for 
safety  in  privileges  and  property,  and  to  review  and 
perfect  the  laws,  and  to  give  the  postponed  considera- 
tion to  the  King's  letter.  It  seems  as  if  the  mention  of 
property  was  a  slip  of  the  tongue,  or  at  least  that  what 
Penn  intended  was  a  charter  which  might  protect  re- 
ligious immunities,  in  anticipation  of  the  possible  trans- 
fer of  the  government,  and  under  which,  if  the  govern- 
ment were  not  taken  by  the  Crown,  his  own  heirs  and 
assigns  would  not  be  as  near  absolute  as  King  Charles 's 
patent  made  them. 

The  controversy  precipitated  in  a  few  days  over 
questions  strictly  of  property  has  been  detailed  in  the 
chapter  upon  the  Acquisition  and  Distribution  of  the 
Land. 

Penn  called  the  Assemblymen  before  him  on  the  29th, 
and  asked  what  progress  had  been  made  in  the  matter 
of  the  King's  letter,  and  expressed  wonder  that  nothing 
had  been  sent  to  him  in  amendment  of  the  laws,  and 
that  the  opportunity  was  not  being  embraced  of  secur- 
ing the  freemen  in  their  privileges,  he  desiring  to  part 
with  them  lovingly,  and  having  no  longer  than  three 
weeks  to  stay.  Joseph  Growdon,  the  Speaker,  reported 
the  resolution  of  the  House, — it  had  been  carried  unani- 


Penn's  Second  Marriage  and  Second  Visit.    397 

mously, — asking  to  be  excused  for  the  present  from 
responding  to  the  King's  request,  the  country  having 
been  much  drained  of  late  by  paying  debts  and  taxes, 
and  it  not  appearing  what  other  colonies  equally  con- 
cerned had  done  on  like  demands ;  the  representatives 
had  been  going  over  the  laws;  as  to  privileges, — the 
authors  of  the  message  must  have  been  in  bad  humor, — 
they  felt  that  they  had  sufficient  as  Englishmen,  and 
were  inclined  to  leave  the  rest  to  Providence.  Never- 
theless, some  days  later,  while  certain  laws  were  being 
considered,  Penn  had  a  Charter  of  Privileges  drafted 
and  submitted  to  the  House. 

A  plea  having  been  set  up  by  certain  inhabitants  of 
Philadelphia  County  against  the  legality  of  the  tax  im- 
posed by  the  law  passed  at  New  Castle,  on  the  ground 
that  New  Castle  was  outside  the  bounds  of  the  Province 
granted  by  Charles  II,  the  magistrates  asked  that  the 
laws  passed  at  New  Castle  be  confirmed.  A  bill  for 
that  purpose  was  prepared  and  sent  by  the  Council  to 
the  Assembly,  where  it  was  received  on  October  10th. 
Thereupon  the  members  from  New  Castle  and  Kent 
and  one  from  Sussex  decided  to  withdraw  from  atten- 
dance, and  said,  in  a  paper  addressed  to  the  Governor, 
that  the  consequences  would  be  fatal  to  the  Lower 
Counties,  if  their  representatives  must  come  into  Penn- 
sylvania to  make  laws  affecting  them.  Penn  told  the 
seceders  that  he  was  grieved  at  the  prospect  of  a  divi- 
sion of  a  union  which  had  cost  him  2000  or  3000Z.  They 
replied  that,  however  the  union  was  intended,  the  Terri- 
tories were  great  sufferers  from  it,  and  could  not  sup- 
port the  burden  of  the  expense.  He  then  said  that  they 
were  free  to  break  off  and  act  by  themselves,  when  they 
could  do  so  upon  amicable  terms.  Pleased  with  his 
declaration  that  they  were  free  to  break  off,  and  have 
a  distinct  legislative  body,  the  seceders  went  back,  but 
the  representatives  of  Pennsylvania  refused,  in  pass- 
ing the  confirmation,  to  express  any  salvo  of  the  privi- 


398  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

leges  of  the  Lower  Counties.  Some  of  the  seceders 
again  retired;  but  Perm  again  brought  them  together. 

Notifying  the  Assembly  of  having  written  to  Eng- 
land to  procure  the  King's  approbation  of  Col.  Hamil- 
ton, Governor  of  the  Jerseys,  as  the  acting  Governor 
of  Pennsylvania  and  Territories,  Penn  asked  for  the 
nomination  of  fit  persons  to  administer  the  govern- 
ment from  Penn's  departure.  The  Assembly  acknowl- 
edged this  evidence  of  his  good  will,  but  requested  to 
be  excused,  leaving  the  choice  to  him.  He  duly  notified 
the  Assembly  that  the  support  of  Hamilton  would  fall 
upon  the  colonists,  and  not  upon  the  titular  Governor, 
whose  Deputy  he  would  be.  The  House  forwarded  the 
request  of  some  inhabitants  of  the  city  that  the  burdens 
on  trade,  such  as  the  impost  on  liquors,  be  remitted.  He 
replied  that  he  would  have  accepted  an  equivalent,  but, 
as  the  session  must  close,  it  was  too  late ;  so  the  House 
voted  that  the  impost  be  continued,  unless  300£.  be  se- 
cured to  him  before  he  sailed,  payable  within  six 
months.    This  was  not  secured. 

The  House  had  actually,  on  October  27,  sent  an 
answer,  in  the  determination  to  regulate  the  resurvey- 
ing  of  property,  that  a  certain  Charter  of  Property 
must  be  passed  first,  and,  dependent  upon  such  action, 
the  bill  for  the  confirmation  of  the  laws :  but  this  stand 
was  not  adhered  to,  and  among  the  laws  which  received 
the  great  seal  on  October  28  was  one  confirming  ninety- 
six  laws  passed  at  New  Castle.  In  re-enacting  the  law 
about  marriages,  there  was  an  endeavor  to  appease  the 
Churchmen  by  leaving  out  of  the  proviso  the  require- 
ment that  intentions  be  published,  and  substituting  a 
requirement  of  a  month's  previous  notice  to  parents, 
masters,  mistresses,  or  guardians  as  the  only  condition 
upon  which  the  law  was  not  to  refer  to  a  marriage  in 
the  religious  society  of  the  parties.  This  law  was  al- 
lowed by  the  Queen. 

The  law  passed  on  Oct.  28,  1701,  for  establishing 


Penn's  Second  Marriage  and  Second  Visit.    399 

courts  of  judicature  in  the  Province  and  Territories, 
and  under  which  justice  was  administered  for  about  five 
years,  provided  for  county  courts  holding  sessions 
quarterly,  that  for  Philadelphia  beginning  the  first 
Tuesday  in  March,  June,  September,  and  December, 
the  county  courts  trying  all  criminal  cases  except  for 
certain  offences,  and  trying  all  civil  cases.  They  were 
furthermore  authorized  to  hear  and  decree  all  matters 
of  equity,  and  it  may  surprise  some  who  speak  of  a 
subsequent  Governor's  Court  of  Chancery  as  the  first 
in  Pennsylvania,  to  read  that  the  proceedings  in  these 
county  courts  in  equity  were  to  be  by  bill  and  answer 
and  ' '  such  other  pleadings  as  are  necessary  in  chancery 
courts,  and  proper  in  these  parts,  with  power  also  for 
the  said  justices  to  force  obedience  to  their  decrees  in 
equity  by  imprisonment  or  sequestration  of  lands,  as 
the  case  may  require."  It  is  fair  to  assume  that  the 
facts  for  equitable  relief  were  found  by  a  jury,  and  not 
by  a  master  or  a  judge.  There  was  to  be  a  Provincial 
Court,  or,  in  other  words,  a  Supreme  Court  over  the 
whole  Province  and  Territories,  for  appeals  and  for 
trying  treason,  murder,  and  certain  other  crimes,  in- 
cluding burglary  and  burning  of  houses.  From  judg- 
ments on  appeals  there  could  be  appeal  to  England  on 
deposit  of  the  amount  of  money  involved,  or  giving 
security  in  double  the  amount.  The  county  Justices 
with  the  Begister-General  or  his  deputy  in  each  county 
were  to  form  an  Orphans'  Court. 

The  Charter  of  Privileges  involving  a  Frame  of  Gov- 
ernment proposed  by  Perm  did  not  satisfy  the  people 
of  the  Lower  Counties,  but  after  some  emendation  was, 
upon  the  day  of  adjournment,  executed  by  the  Pro- 
prietary in  the  presence  of  his  Council,  and  probably 
of  a  number  of  Assemblymen  including  the  Speaker. 
It  was  said  that  less  than  a  majority  of  the  House 
adopted  the  Charter.  The  House  was  not  in  actual 
session  when  the  Speaker  appended  his  signature  to 


400  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

a  certificate  that  the  Charter  had  been  approved  and 
agreed  to,  and  was  thankfully  received,  and  that  he 
signed  by  order  of  the  Assembly.  As  thus  established, 
this  instrument  of  October  28,  1701,  in  connection  with 
Charles  II 's  patent  to  Penn,  was  the  written  constitu- 
tion of  Pennsylvania  proper  until  the  Revolutionary 
War.  The  provisions  will  be  stated  in  the  next  chapter. 

The  bill  relating  to  property  was  not  agreed  upon. 
On  the  last  day  of  the  session,  the  House  made  certain 
offers,  but  Penn,  rejecting  these,  summoned  the  repre- 
sentatives to  his  residence,  expostulated  with  those  who 
came,  told  them  that  he  had  scarcely  half  an  hour  to 
spend  with  them,  pressed  his  latest  proposal  upon 
them,  and  advised  them  to  go. into  his  parlor  and  con- 
sider it.  They  accordingly  retired  to  his  parlor,  and, 
in  about  an  hour,  sent  word  in  writing  that  they  could 
not  depart  from  their  former  concession. 

On  October  28, 1701,  the  Assembly  was  dissolved,  and 
a  new  Charter  for  the  City  of  Philadelphia  was  signed 
by  Penn  with  several  commissions.  One  of  these  com- 
missions named  as  a  Council  of  State  to  advise  the 
Governor  or  Deputy-Governor,  and  in  the  absence  of 
both  to  exercise  the  powers  of  government,  the  follow- 
ing " trusty  and  well  beloved  friends,"  viz:  Shippen, 
Guest,  Carpenter,  Clark,  Story,  Owen,  Pemberton, 
Samuel  Finney  (mentioned  in  chapter  on  the  People), 
Pusey,  and  Blunston,  the  first  named  to  take  the  Chair 
on  failure  of  the  Lieutenant-Governor  to  name  a  Presi- 
dent. Four  were  to  be  a  quorum  to  advise,  and  five  to 
be  a  quorum  to  exercise  the  powers  of  government. 
The  Lieutenant,  or  Deputy,  Governor,  could  add  new 
members. 

Penn  had  intended  to  take  with  him  to  England  one 
or  two  Pennsylvanians,  and  to  leave  his  wife  and  baby 
and  Laetitia  to  await  his  return :  but  he  was  obliged  to 
do  without  advisers  or  aids  from  the  colony,  as  neither 
Hannah  nor  the  daughter  could  be  prevailed  upon  to 


Penn's  Second  Marriage  and  Second  Visit.    401 

stay  without  him.  They  went  down  on  a  yacht  to  New 
Castle,  where  the  whole  family  embarked  on  the  ship 
"Dolmahoy."  The  ship  remained  a  few  days  after- 
wards at  New  Castle.  About  this  time,  Quary,  sent 
for  by  persons  in  England  to  promote  the  abolition  of 
Proprietary  governments,  found  that  there  was  a 
vessel  about  to  sail  from  Virginia;  so  he  hastened 
thither,  in  hopes  of  reaching  England  as  soon  as  Penn. 
David  Lloyd  went  to  New  Castle,  and  submitted  to  Penn 
a  Charter  of  Property,  which,  at  the  entreaty  of  several 
persons,  Penn  signed  and  handed  over  to  the  Secretary 
with  a  paper,  dated  8ber  31,  explaining  that  he  had 
not  had  time  to  digest  the  terms,  especially  as  to  courts, 
and  postponed  the  complete  passing  of  the  Charter 
until  he  could  see  the  state  of  affairs  in  England,  that 
he  could  not  give  such  rights  to  persons  in  Pennsyl- 
vania alone,  this  Charter  not  mentioning  the  Lower 
Counties,  that  he  confirmed  the  part  relating  strictly 
to  land :  he  accordingly  in  this  paper  ordered  Governor 
Hamilton  to  have  the  great  seal  affixed  at  the  end  of 
six  months,  if  no  message  were  received  to  the  con- 
trary, and  promised  to  execute  such  Charter  or  one 
which  counsel  in  England  would  advise,  as  well  as  a 
suitable  Charter  of  Property  for  the  Lower  Counties, 
if  they  wished  it. 

The  "Dolmahoy"  went  aground  in  the  Bay,  but  got 
off  without  much  damage.  Logan  accompanied  his 
master  as  far  as  the  Capes,  receiving  a  letter  of  in- 
structions from  him  dated  on  shipboard,  9mo.  3.  The 
remainder  of  the  passage  was  a  swift  one,  twenty-six 
days  from  land  to  soundings,  thirty  to  Portsmouth.  He 
sent  back  a  message,  dated  January  8,  1701-2,  annull- 
ing the  Charter  of  Property,  that  is  ordering  the  seal 
not  to  be  put  to  it,  unless  within  six  months  he  should 
change  his  mind.    This  he  did  not  do. 


26 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

Government  by  Penn's  Friends. 

The  new  Frame  of  Government — The  result  of 
Penn's  visit  a  reduction  of  the  People's  power. — 
Political  situation  of  the  Churchmen — Parmiter 
— Quary's  military  scheme — Andrew  Hamilton 
and  his  namesake — Changes  in  the  Council — 
Anne  becomes  Queen — Pennsylvanians  ready  to 
accept  Lord  Cornbury — War  with  France  and  a 
voluntary  militia — Legislative  separation  from 
Lower  Counties — Failure  of  bill  to  abolish  Pro- 
prietary governments — Disagreement  about  trying 
capital  cases — Hamilton  approved  for  one  year — 
Queen's  order  as  to  oaths — Hamilton's  death — 
Shippen  and  fellow  Councillors — Mompesson — 
Value  of  foreign  coins — Indians  and  the  traders 
among  them — Approval  of  a  Lieutenant-Governor 
— Lord  Cornbury  wanted  by  Churchmen — The 
Assemblymen  chosen  in  1703 — Gov.  Evans  and 
William  Penn  Jr.  arrive — New  Councillors — The 
legislative  separation  of  Lower  Counties  confirmed 
— Penn's  reservation  of  assent  to  laws  declared 
void — Assembly  addresses  Queen  concerning  oaths 
— Penn's  financial  circumstances — The  Ford 
claim  pressed — Penn  asks  for  a  house  in  Phila- 
delphia and  annuity — Penn  offers  to  sell  the 
government — Suggestion  to  pay  Quary,  Moore, 
et  al.  to  leave — Solicitude  of  Penn's  friends  as 
to  selling  value  of  the  Governorship. 

The  new  Charter  of  Privileges,  or  written  Constitu- 
tion, had  as  its  first  clause  practically  the  old  law  for 
liberty  of  conscience,  and  that  all  persons  professing  be- 
lief "in  Jesus  Christ  the  Saviour  of  the  World"  should 


Government  by  Penn's  Friends.  403 

be  capable  of  serving  the  government  on  solemnly- 
promising,  when  required,  allegiance  to  the  King,  and 
fidelity  to  the  Proprietor  and  Governor,  and  on  taking 
the  attests  prescribed  in  the  law  passed  at  New  Castle 
as  recently  amended  and  confirmed.  Four  members 
annually  chosen  from  each  county  were  to  form  an 
Assembly,  the  right  to  choose  or  be  chosen  being  lim- 
ited according  to  the  law  passed  at  New  Castle.  Two 
persons  for  each  county  were  to  be  chosen  triennially, 
from  whom  the  Governor  should  select  the  Sheriff,  and 
two  from  whom  the  Governor  should  select  the  Coroner, 
the  Sheriff  and  Coroner  serving  three  years.  Criminals 
should  have  the  same  privileges  of  witnesses  and  coun- 
sel as  their  prosecutors.  No  person  should  answer  re- 
lating to  property  before  the  Governor  and  Council  or 
elsewhere  than  in  the  courts  of  justice,  unless  appeals 
were  appointed  by  law.  No  person  should  keep  a  house 
of  public  entertainment  unless  licensed  by  the  Governor 
upon  recommendation  by  the  county  Justices.  The 
estate  of  any  person  killing  himself  should  descend  as 
if  he  had  died  a  natural  death.  The  Charter  could  be 
changed  or  diminished  in  effect  only  by  the  Governor 
and  six  sevenths  of  the  Assembly  met.  A  postscript 
was  added  allowing  within  the  next  three  years  the 
representatives  of  either  Pennsylvania  or  the  Lower 
Counties  by  a  majority  vote  to  withdraw  from  the  As- 
sembly, and  establish  a  separate  legislature,  that  for 
Pennsylvania  to  consist  of  not  less  than  eight  members 
from  each  county  and  also  two  members  from  the  town 
of  Philadelphia. 

When  we  compare  the  old  constitution  with  this 
Frame  and  various  other  arrangements  left  by  Penn, 
we  can  state  the  great  result  of  his  visit  to  have  been 
a  change  of  the  government  from  one  by  the  People  to 
one  by  the  Proprietary's  friends.  To  be  sure,  while  the 
City  Corporation  received  somewhat  greater  powers 
than  what  the  City's  charter  signed  by  Lloyd  in  1691 


404  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

had  given,  and  the  right  to  elect  officers  and  fill  vacan- 
cies had  made  the  new  as  well  as  the  old  a  close  cor- 
poration, the  body  was  independent,  and  the  members 
appointed  by  the  charter  of  the  new  to  serve  at  first, 
except  Shippen,  the  Mayor,  and  Story,  the  Recorder, 
and  one  or  two  others,  could  hardly  be  called  Penn's 
close  friends.  Not  so,  however,  as  to  province 
and  county.  Logan  wrote  some  years  later  that 
Penn,  at  a  time  not  specified,  was  inclined  for  an 
aristocracy,  and  had  designed  to  give  to  an  upper 
element  control,  but  was  thwarted  by  some  individ- 
uals. If  this  was  the  case  at  the  preparation  of  the 
Frame  of  1701,  it  is  to  be  inferred  that  David  Lloyd 
was  the  chief  obstructor.  Far  from  being  democratic, 
what  Logan  says  was  made  republican,  was  made  mon- 
archic. Under  the  Frame  of  1683,  and  even  under  that 
of  1696,  the  free  men  of  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware 
after  a  short  residence  or  at  least  those  who  had  a  little 
property,  had  been  able  not  only  to  force  or  retard 
legislation,  but,  except  within  the  sphere  of  the  City 
charter  of  1691,  to  control,  by  their  delegates  in  the 
Provincial  Council,  the  management  of  all  public 
affairs.  Under  the  Frame  of  1701,  the  Governor  had 
an  absolute  veto  upon  laws,  and  there  was  no  Upper 
House  elected  to  participate  in  executive  business.  All 
the  power  left  in  the  People  was  that  a  part  of  the 
People  could  choose  an  Assembly,  like  the  English 
House  of  Commons,  to  do  only  what  the  House  of  Com- 
mons at  that  time  could  do,  viz :  propose  laws,  and  offer 
money.  The  acting  Governor  or  the  Governor-in-Chief 
behind  him  was  to  be  supreme,  like  a  local  king — that 
is,  a  king  of  that  day,  no  mere  figure-head,  like  a  mod- 
ern constitutional  monarch.  Furthermore,  the  advisers 
of  the  acting  Governor,  like  the  contemporary  cabinets 
of  kings,  and  unlike  to-day's  Parliamentary  ministries, 
were  to  be  independent  of  the  voters.  It  also  can  be 
said  that,  beginning  with  the  first  Hamilton,  and  until 


Government  by  Penn's  Friends.  405 

the  close  of  this  history,  the  Lieutenant-Governors 
personally  had  less  in  common  with  the  inhabitants 
than  those  appointed  before  1700.  Of  those  earlier 
ones,  Blackwell,  to  be  sure,  had  been  a  stranger,  but 
Markham  was  the  leader  whom  the  purchasers  from 
Penn  had  followed  to  their  new  home,  and  Thomas 
Lloyd  had  the  respect  of  the  majority  of  the  settlers 
as  a  preacher  and  sufferer  for  their  religion,  while  the 
other  Commissioners  of  State  and  the  Assistants  were 
such  as  the  planters,  left  to  their  own  judgment,  might 
have  elected. 

One  explanation  of  the  change  in  the  constitution, 
or  a  contributing  motive  for  it,  may  have  been  the  idea 
that  only  a  ruler  independent  of  the  People  can  pre- 
serve the  liberties  of  the  minority,  and  Penn  must  have 
foreseen  that  the  Quakers,  for  whose  enjoyment  of 
privileges  his  colony  had  been  started,  were  about  to 
become  the  minority  in  it.  He  left  the  government  well 
organized  against  the  Churchmen,  likely  to  include  the 
poorer  immigrants  of  the  future,  and  to  bring  into  co- 
alition with  themselves  the  Lutherans,  Presbyterians, 
and  Baptists  on  the  question  of  war  and  oaths.  With 
the  Quaker  landholders  preponderating  in  the  Assem- 
bly, and  with  the  judiciary  filled  as  he  had  chosen, 
nothing  contrary  to  the  consciences  of  his  fellow  re- 
ligionists could  be  imposed,  except  by  the  government 
in  London,  and,  being  in  England,  he  might  influence 
those  officials  to  be  considerate. 

The  active  Churchmen  wished  the  Province  and  Ter- 
ritories put  under  a  Governor  selected  by  the  Cabinet 
ministers,  and  holding  directly  under  the  Crown. 
Quary  carried  over  to  England  two  addresses,  one, 
dated  Oct.  25,  from  eight  representatives  of  the  Lower 
Counties,  Yeates,  Halliwell,  Adam  Pieterson,  Luke 
Wattson  Jr.,  William  Eodeney,  John  Brinckloe,  John 
Walker,  and  John  Donnaldson,  complaining  of  Penn's 
giving  no  satisfaction  about  defence.    Yeates  at  least 


406  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

was  a  Churchman,  and  in  the  Lower  Counties  the  non- 
Quakers  were  strong.  The  other  address  was  from  the 
Minister  and  some  of  the  Vestry  of  Christ  Church, 
dated  Oct.  27,  setting  forth  certain  failures  of  justice 
under  Quaker  control  of  the  judiciary.  Rather  un- 
gratefully, we  should  say,  John  Moore  signed  this:  he 
was  both  Register-General  of  Wills  and  Attorney-Gen- 
eral by  Penn's  appointment,  and  was  drawing,  as 
Attorney-General,  a  salary  directly  from  Penn. 

Except  in  the  case  of  Moore  and  of  two  or  three 
persons  sent  over  by  Penn  to  hold  office,  the  political 
circumstances  of  an  Episcopalian  residing  in  the  Upper 
Counties  at  this  time  were  not  pleasant.  In  more  cases 
than  among  the  Quakers,  he  was  one  of  the  poor  dis- 
qualified from  voting,  yet  obliged  to  pay  a  tax.  If, 
however,  he  had  the  ability  and  standing  fitting  him 
for  office,  he  was  discriminated  against  by  the  voters. 
Everybody  was  taxed  for  a  gratuity  to  William  Penn, 
to  help  pay  for  his  having  been  a  great  man  at  Court, 
and  other  parts  of  his  career  which  did  not  interest, 
or  were  disapproved  of  by  Churchmen,  and  the  net 
result  of  which  was  the  maintenance  on  the  Delaware 
of  the  political  power  of  men  who  would  not  administer, 
much  less  require,  an  oath,  and  would  not  authorize, 
much  less  take  part  in,  the  defence  of  the  colony.  It 
may  be  said  that  the  Quakers  had  a  right  to  the  coun- 
try which  they  had  planted,  and  that  the  dissatisfied 
minority  should  have  left :  but  that  course  naturally  did 
not  commend  itself  even  to  such  as  could  afford  to  re- 
move :  they  were  adhering  to  the  ecclesiastical  organiza- 
tion and  customs  adopted  by  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  and 
Pennsylvania  comprised  an  extensive  region,  one  of  the 
best  under  the  English  Crown. 

Penn  had  intended  the  superseding  of  Moore  as  At- 
torney-General, but  the  commission  for  that  purpose 
to  Paroculus  Parmiter,  if  signed,  was  not  made  use  of, 
it  being  learned  that  Parmiter,  who  was  one  of  Penn's 


Government  by  Penn's  Friends.  407 

kindred,  had  been  convicted  at  Bristol,  England,  of  the 
capital  crime  of  forgery,  but  pardoned.  Penn  commis- 
sioned Markham  on  5,  27,  1703,  as  Register-General, 
but  Moore  claimed  a  freehold  in  the  office,  withheld  the 
official  seal,  and  sued  Markham,  but,  after  the  latter 's 
death,  abandoned  or  lost  the  case. 

Quary,  who  remained  in  England  until  July,  1702, 
suggested,  but  did  not  succeed  in  having  taken  up,  the 
following  solution  of  the  problem  of  defence,  viz :  that 
in  every  colony  all  freemen  and  all  immigrants  be 
obliged  to  enroll  themselves  in  a  company  of  militia, 
the  poor  as  foot  soldiers,  the  rich  as  dragoons:  but 
that  Quakers  and  others  with  scruples  against  bearing 
arms  were  to  certify  their  opinion  in  writing,  and,  in 
place  of  bearing  arms,  to  do  an  equivalent  in  some  pub- 
lic work,  and  to  furnish  their  quota  agreeable  to  their 
estates,  said  quota  to  be  laid  out  in  providing  arms, 
ammunition,  and  all  warlike  stores. 

Andrew  Hamilton,  who  met  the  Council  on  November 
14,  1701,  and  to  whom  Logan  was  instructed  to  make 
up  an  allowance  of  2001.  per  annum  until  royal  appro- 
bation of  the  appointment,  and  300Z.  thereafter,  was  a 
native  of  Scotland,  and  had  acted  as  Governor  of  one 
or  both  of  the  provinces  of  New  Jersey  at  different 
times  since  1689,  and  is  mentioned  in  another  chapter 
as  having  started  an  inter-colonial  postal  service. 
When  Quary,  before  the  Board  of  Trade,  made  the 
point  against  Penn  of  his  leaving  Hamilton  as  acting 
Governor  without  the  royal  approbation,  Penn  pleaded 
the  necessity  of  the  case.  He  had  obtained  the  opinion 
of  William  Attwood,  Chief  Justice  at  New  York,  that 
the  deputizing  by  a  Governor-in-Chief  was  good  until 
the  King  could  be  informed.  Penn  explained  that  he 
had  chosen  Hamilton  because  there  was  no  other  non- 
Quaker  at  hand  fit  for  the  position  except  Markham, 
whom  the  Crown  had  so  lately  ordered  to  be  removed 
from  it.  Quary  said  that  there  were  several  others,  who 


408  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

were,  moreover,  less  liable  to  objection.  Hamilton  had 
been  careful  of  Quaker  interests  in  New  Jersey,  but 
was  not  personally  disliked  by  the  Churchmen.  He  had 
probably  adhered  to  the  episcopally  governed  clergy 
both  in  Scotland  and  in  London,  where  he  is  said  to  have 
been  a  merchant. 

In  the  late  years  of  his  life,  he  befriended  a  young 
Scotchman,  said  to  have  been  born  in  Edinburgh  about 
1676,  who  took  the  name  of  Andrew  Hamilton  while 
residing  in  the  Virginia  or  Maryland  "Eastern  Shore," 
and  with  such  name  appears  in  history,  being  the  great- 
est lawyer  of  his  day  in  Pennsylvania.  He  is  said  to 
have  emigrated  from  Scotland  in  such  needs  as  to  have 
his  time  sold  to  a  planter,  because  fleeing  from  an 
actual  or  impending  charge  of  murder,  as  the  result  of 
a  fight.  Despite  all  that  has  been  surmised,  there  was 
probably  nothing  interesting  about  the  paternity  of  the 
fugitive.  He  had  sufficient  education  to  assist  his  second 
employer  in  teaching  school,  and,  as  he  at  one  time 
bore  the  name  of  Trent,  he  may  have  been  related  to 
William  Trent,  the  Pennsylvania  Councillor,  or  more 
closely  to  Maurice  Trent,  who  was  early  in  New  Jersey, 
and  afterwards  of  Leith,  Scotland. 

Without  raising  the  objection  of  Hamilton's  appoint- 
ment not  having  been  confirmed,  Halliwell,  Moore,  and 
Yeates,  three  of  those  authorized  by  a  document  known 
as  a  "dedimus  potestatem"  to  administer  to  the  Gov- 
ernor of  Pennsylvania  the  oath  required  by  the  Act  of 
7  &  8  Wm.  Ill,  very  captiously  refused  to  administer  the 
oath  to  Hamilton,  unless  the  dedimus  potestatem  were 
surrendered  to  them.  The  Council  thought  the  Secre- 
tary or  the  Master  of  the  Rolls  the  proper  custodian, 
and,  as  the  document  gave  to  any  five  of  the  Council 
with  the  Collector  of  the  Port  the  same  power  as  to 
those  particularly  named,  Councillors  Guest,  Samuel 
Finney,  and  John  Finney  with  John  Bewley,  Collector 
of  the  Port,   administered   the   oath   in  presence  of 


Government  by  Penn's  Friends.  409 

Councillors  Carpenter,  Clark,  and  Pusey,  who  joined 
in  signing  the  certificate. 

The  membership  of  the  Governor's  Council,  a  few 
months  after  its  establishment,  was  slightly  changed 
by  the  death  of  Phineas  Pemberton,  Penn's  staunchest 
friend  in  Bucks  Co.,  and  the  admission,  in  accordance 
with  Penn's  wishes,  of  John  Finney,  eldest  son  of 
Samuel  Finney.  On  the  same  day  as  John  Finney,  viz : 
April  21,  1702,  Logan  qualified  as  a  member. 

On  the  death  of  William  III,  March  8,  1701-2,  Queen 
Mary  having  died  previously,  her  sister  Anne,  wife  of 
Prince  George  of  Denmark,  succeeded  to  the  throne. 
Staunch  as  she  was  for  the  Anglican  Church,  she  was 
no  enemy  to  her  old  acquaintance,  Penn,  the  friend  of 
her  father,  James  II.  In  a  letter  of  July  14,  1706,  un- 
signed but  attributed  to  Peno,  the  writer  speaks  of 
his  own  steady  and  secret  (private)  and  public  services 
to  her  in  many  ways,  for  which  not  everybody  besides 
himself  had  the  power  or  talent. 

Edward  Hyde,  by  courtesy  Viscount  Cornbury,  son 
of  the  Queen's  uncle,  Henry,  2nd  Earl  of  Clarendon, 
having  been  appointed  Governor  of  New  York  and 
Commander  of  the  Militia  of  the  Jerseys  and  Con- 
necticut by  the  late  King,  came  to  Burlington  in  June, 
1702,  and  was  invited  to  Philadelphia,  where  he  spent 
the  night  at  Shippen's,  and,  with  a  retinue  thirty  in 
number,  was  entertained  at  the  Proprietary's  expense 
at  as  handsome  a  dinner,  it  was  said,  as  his  Lordship 
had  seen  in  America.  The  next  day,  he  was  escorted 
from  Burlington  to  Pennsbury,  and  there  entertained, 
about  fifty  being  in  company.  By  his  manners,  the 
Quakers  were  so  much  pleased  with  this  cousin  of  the 
Queen  that  they  thought,  that,  if  proprietary  govern- 
ment were  abolished,  they  would  be  satisfied  to  have 
him  as  Governor.  Furthermore,  they  were  becoming 
indifferent  to  the  bill  before  Parliament,  if  only  certain 
privileges    could    be    retained,    the    more    spiritually 


410  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

minded  thinking  that  acts  of  government  were  foreign 
to  their  profession,  and  those  who  loved  Penn  feeling 
that  his  life  would  be  easier,  and  he  probably  happier, 
if  he  had  the  Proprietaryship  only.  Naturally,  there 
was,  however,  a  desire  that  the  reflections  upon  the 
Quakers'  conduct  of  affairs  should  be  dispelled,  and 
that  the  country  should  not  fall  under  the  control  of  the 
non-Quaker  partisans,  who  had  cast  such  reflections. 

On  July  10,  1702,  without  the  receipt  of  an  order 
from  the  English  government,  but  preparatory  to  in- 
viting those  inclined  to  form  a  militia,  in  view  of  the 
new  war  against  France  and  Spain,  proclamation  of 
Anne's  accession  was  made.  On  the  24th,  the  war  was 
proclaimed.  In  a  few  days,  one  company  of  militia 
was  started.  George  Lowther,  a  lawyer  from  Notting- 
hamshire, but  of  a  Yorkshire  family,  was  made  the 
captain.  But  the  enrolment  was  not  a  success.  The 
Churchmen  wished  it  a  failure,  so  that  the  English 
government  would  think  it  necessary  to  take  the  do- 
minions into  its  own  hands.  The  Quakers  could  not 
join  the  colors  on  account  of  their  principles.  There 
was,  moreover,  an  idea  that  those  who  joined  would 
be  required  to  proceed  to  Canada.  So,  after  great 
efforts,  only  about  a  score  or  two  of  the  poorest  men, 
with  only  six  swords  among  them,  and,  we  are  told, 
just  as  deficient  in  shoes  and  stockings,  mustered  for  a 
review. 

The  Aldermen  of  the  City  claimed  in  1702  the  right 
to  act  as  Justices  in  the  Court  of  Common  Pleas  for 
both  County  and  City;  and,  when  Hamilton  and  some 
lawyers  thought  them  wrong,  and  Capt.  Finney,  the 
head  of  those  commissioned  for  the  County,  refused  to 
sit  with  the  Aldermen,  the  Mayor's  Court  was  held,  and 
all  fines  for  offences  in  the  cognizance  of  those  Alder- 
men, including  fines  of  keepers  of  public  houses  for 
selling  without  a  license,  were  claimed.  Penn,  hearing 
of  this,  hoped  for  some  change  of  feeling,  but  was  in- 


Government  by  Penn's  Friends.  411 

clined  to  recall  the  corporation's  charter,  as  certain 
lawyers  thought  he  could  legally,  and  he  was  confident 
that  the  English  government  would  approve. 

Quary  making  charges  against  Penn  in  particular 
and  the  Quakers  in  general,  to  show  their  malfeasance 
as  a  cause  for  abolishing  their  government,  and  Penn 
answering,  and  making  counter  charges  against  Quary, 
there  was  a  fruitless  contention,  some  of  the  papers  in 
which  appear  in  the  printed  Penn  and  Logan  Corre- 
spondence. Quary  returned  to  America  with  a  letter 
from  the  Commissioners  of  Trade,  desiring  him  to  ac- 
quaint the  gentlemen  of  the  Lower  Counties  of  their 
letter  of  Oct.  25,  1701,  being  under  consideration  for 
their  relief,  and  to  assure  them  of  the  Queen's  protec- 
tion and  care  for  their  welfare  and  security.  Quary 
also  brought  a  letter  of  protection  from  the  Queen  re- 
quiring all  Governors,  Lieutenant-Governors,  magis- 
trates, and  officers  civil  and  military  to  assist  him. 
Both  letters  are  printed  in  Virginia  Mag.  Hist.  &  Biog., 
Vol.  XXIII. 

The  people  of  the  Lower  Counties  did  not  like  the 
Charter,  or  Frame  of  Government  of  the  Province  and 
Territories,  granted  on  Oct.  28,  1701,  because,  accord- 
ing to  Quary,  of  the  toleration  of  Deists  and  of  the 
eligibility  of  Papists  to  office;  and  there  was  a  denial 
of  the  validity  of  the  Charter,  in  view  of  its  not  having 
been  agreed  to  by  a  clear  majority  of  the  Assembly. 
On  the  day  for  the  first  election  for  Assemblymen 
under  the  Charter,  none  were  chosen  by  the  Lower 
Counties.  The  Upper  Counties,  comprising  Pennsyl- 
vania proper,  or  the  Province  strictly  so  called,  chose 
the  required  number,  viz:  Joseph  Growdon,  John 
Swift,  William  Paxon  (now  Paxson),  Jeremiah  Lang- 
horne,  David  Lloyd,  Anthony  Morris,  Samuel  Richard- 
son, Griffith  Jones  (formerly  mentioned  as  a  Quaker), 
Nicholas  Pyle,  Andrew  Job,  John  Bennet,  and  John 
Worrall.    These  arrived  in  Philadelphia  at  the  time  for 


412  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

organizing  the  House,  and,  acting  upon  the  default  of 
the  Lower  Counties,  declared  the  disunion  spoken  of  in 
the  Charter  to  have  taken  place,  and  accordingly  asked 
for  the  increase  provided  for  in  such  case  in  the  num- 
ber of  representatives  of  Bucks,  Chester,  and  Phila- 
delphia, including  two  from  the  City. 

At  this  time,  William  Penn's  title  to  the  government 
and  territory  of  New  Castle  &ct.  was  being  strongly 
questioned  in  England.  Hamilton  and  the  friends  of 
Penn  saw  that  the  relations  of  the  two  parts  of  the  dual 
colony  required  conciliation  or  at  least  temporizing :  so 
Hamilton  pleaded  with  the  representatives  of  the  Prov- 
ince not  to  take  the  radical  measure.  He  pointed  out 
that  tobacco,  which  was  the  chief  commodity  sent  to 
England,  and  was  mostly  furnished  by  the  Territories, 
would  be  so  incumbered  by  a  separate  legislature  at  the 
place  of  growth  as  to  divert  the  trade  from  Philadel- 
phia. The  inhabitants  of  the  Territories  were  very 
likely,  upon  the  erection  of  a  distinct  Assembly  for  the 
Province,  to  remonstrate  to  the  Queen,  and  pray  that 
they,  being  thrown  off  and  left  destitute,  be  taken 
under  her  immediate  protection:  and  such  remon- 
strance would  probably  be  taken  advantage  of  by  the 
officials  in  England  desirous  of  weakening  Proprietary 
government,  and  cause  the  royal  approbation  of  Penn's 
appointment  of  the  Lieutenant-Governor  to  be  re- 
stricted to  Pennsylvania.  If  the  Assemblymen  were  bent 
upon  a  separation  from  the  Lower  Counties,  it  would  be 
better  first  to  wait  to  see  whether,  as  the  result  of  the 
questioning  of  Penn's  title  to  those  Counties,  the  Queen 
would  make  the  separation,  in  which  case  the  Pennsyl- 
vanians  would  not  incur  blame.  As  to  increasing  the 
number  of  representatives,  the  Lieutenant-Governor 
could  not  see  how  it  could  be  done  until  the  next  elec- 
tion appointed  by  the  Charter,  the  first  of  October  fol- 
lowing. The  Assemblymen,  nearly  all  being  Quakers, 
were  inclined  to  insist,  declaring  that,  by  the  union,  the 


Government  by  Penn's  Friends.  413 

first  purchasers  from  Penn  had  been  unable  to  have 
the  privileges  they  had  expected.  However,  it  being 
thought  that  the  Lower  Counties  might  elect  represen- 
tatives, if  summoned  to  do  so  by  writs,  writs  were 
issued,  and  the  Assemblymen  from  Pennsylvania 
agreed  to  await  the  result.  The  Lower  Counties  duly 
chose  representatives,  but  these  expressed  unwilling- 
ness to  sit  with  members  chosen  under  direction  of  the 
Charter,  which  the  Lower  Counties  did  not  recognize. 
The  Assemblymen  from  Pennsylvania,  coming  back  to 
Philadelphia,  were  willing  to  join  with  those  chosen  by 
the  Lower  Counties,  but  would  do  so  only  on  the  basis 
of  the  Charter  being  in  force.  Although  there  was  a 
letter  from  the  English  government  through  Lord 
Cornbury  requiring  a  contribution  to  the  fortification 
of  the  frontiers  at  Albany,  and  there  seemed  a  neces- 
sity for  a  law  for  a  militia  composed  of  those  without 
scruples  against  bearing  arms,  so  as  to  repel  invasion 
from  the  sea,  Hamilton  could  only  dismiss  the  legis- 
lators. Then  the  twelve  representatives  of  Philadel- 
phia, Bucks,  and  Chester  certified  under  hand  and  seal 
that  they  desired  the  filling  up  of  the  body  for  the  Prov- 
ince according  to  the  Charter,  with  two  members  from 
the  City,  and  so  that  Philadelphia  County  should  have 
eight  members,  Bucks  nine,  and  Chester  nine.  It  does 
not  seem  as  if  such  disparity  for  the  rural  districts  was 
intended  by  Penn  when  he  said  that  each  county  should 
''not  have  less  than  eight  persons;"  and  Griffith  Jones, 
in  joining  the  other  representatives,  excepted  against 
the  extra  member  from  Bucks  and  Chester. 

The  bill  for  the  abolition  of  proprietary  governments 
had  failed  to  pass  at  the  session  of  Parliament  during 
which  Penn  decided  to  go  to  England  to  fight  the  bill : 
but  it  was  subsequently  pressed  by  the  persons  con- 
nected with  the  governmental  bureaus  in  London. 
Penn  suggested  such  modification  as  would  reunite  the 
military  government  to  the  Crown,  and  give  to  the 


414  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Commander-in-Chief  the  superintendence  of  the  Cus- 
toms and  Admiralty  officials,  but  leave  the  civil  author- 
ity as  it  stood,  just  as  in  corporations  in  England  where 
the  King's  appointee  was  Governor,  and,  moreover, 
allow  appeal  to  the  King  on  all  matters  above  £300, 
and,  besides,  give  to  the  King  a  veto  on  all  laws.  This 
modification  the  Lords  for  Trade  rejected,  declaring 
that  the  original  bill  "might  be  very  expedient."  The 
Proprietors  of  the  Jerseys  had  been  prevailed  upon  to 
surrender  their  rights  of  government:  but  when  the 
question  came  of  taking  away  such  rights  against  the 
will  of  those  invested  with  them,  the  nobles  and 
knights  of  the  shires  in  Parliament,  accustomed  to 
offices,  jurisdictions,  and  perquisites  as  freeholds,  ap- 
pear to  have  felt  that  such  an  act  would  be  an  invasion 
of  private  property.  The  chance  to  make  a  bargain 
with  the  Crown  was  thus  left  open  to  the  Proprietary 
of  Pennsylvania,  to  be  availed  of  as  will  be  narrated 
later. 

Although  the  Act  of  Assembly  directing  attests, 
which  was  still  in  force  because  not  yet  repealed  by  the 
Crown,  prescribed  the  qualifying  of  Judges  and  jurors 
by  merely  solemnly  promising,  and  the  Act  relating  to 
the  manner  of  giving  evidence,  also  in  force,  allowed 
witnesses  to  qualify  in  the  same  way,  the  rather  shal- 
low Churchman  of  the  legal  profession,  John  Guest, 
whom  Penn  had  made  Chief  Justice  of  the  Provincial 
Court,  and  ex-merchant  Finney,  the  other  Churchman 
on  that  bench,  were  unwilling  to  condemn  a  criminal 
to  death  on  testimony  not  sworn  to,  or  at  least  the 
testimony  of  persons  who  had  no  scruples  against 
oaths,  but  were  unsworn ;  on  the  other  hand,  the  other 
Judges,  Shippen,  Clark,  and  Thomas  Masters,  Quakers, 
were  restrained  by  conscience  from  administering 
oaths.  In  the  absence  of  Clark,  resulting  in  the  im- 
possibility of  "three  of  a  kind"  holding  court,  Hamil- 
ton issued  a  commission  of  jail  delivery  to  Guest  and 


Government  by  Penn's  Friends.  415 

Finney  and  Edward  Farmer,  who  also  was  willing  to 
take  and  administer  oaths ;  but,  the  cases  for  trial  being 
such  as  involved  the  death  penalty,  another  horn  of  the 
dilemma  was  reached,  viz:  Hamilton's  confirmation  as 
acting  Governor  not  having  been  obtained,  his  commis- 
sion would  not  be  sufficient  foundation  for  taking  away 
the  life  of  an  English  subject.  So  the  accused  remained 
in  jail,  until  Clark's  return  gave  the  Quakers  a  quorum 
commissioned  by  Penn  himself. 

The  Commissioners  for  Trade  and  Plantations  ob- 
jected to  the  approbation  of  Hamilton  as  acting  Gov- 
ernor, because  he  was  under  the  imputation  of  having 
encouraged  illegal  trade  in  the  Jerseys.  Finally  Penn 
petitioned  Queen  Anne  that  Hamilton  be  confirmed  for 
one  year.  She  expressed  herself  in  Council  as  inclined 
so  to  gratify  the  petitioner,  and  on  November  11,  1702, 
the  approbation  of  Hamilton  as  Deputy-Governor  of 
the  Province  and  Territories  for  one  year  was  given, 
on  condition  that  Penn  or  others  enter  the  usual  secur- 
ity in  £2000  for  the  Governor's  observance  of  the  Acts 
of  Parliament  relating  to  trade,  and  on  condition  that 
Penn  answer  certain  questions  put  to  him  by  the  Board 
of  Trade  as  to  oaths  or  affirmations  in  Pennsylvania 
and  Territories,  and  as  to  the  rate  at  which  Spanish 
dollars  were  current  there,  &ct.  Penn's  answers  were 
laid  before  the  Board  on  December  1,  and  were  viewed 
as  not  altogether  satisfactory,  but,  for  the  dispatch  of 
business,  the  Commissioners  were  willing  to  let  matters 
proceed.  The  order  giving  the  approbation  having 
stipulated  that  it  was  not  to  set  aside  or  diminish  the 
Queen's  title  to  the  Lower  Counties,  the  Commissioners 
insisted  that  Penn  sign  a  declaration  to  that  effect  in 
the  form  drafted  by  them.  This  he  did  on  December 
10.  The  entering  of  security  made  further  delay,  and 
the  final  certificate  under  which  Hamilton  was  author- 
ized to  act  did  not  reach  Philadelphia  before  he  died. 

The  Queen  in  Council  ordered  on  January  21,  1702-3, 


416  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

that  all  persons  in  judicial  or  other  office  in  Pennsyl- 
vania or  the  Lower  Counties,  before  entering  on  their 
duties,  take  the  oath  directed  by  the  laws  of  England, 
involving  allegiance,  abhorrence  of  the  doctrine  as  to 
excommunicated  princes,  declaration  against  foreign 
princes,  non-belief  in  transubstantiation,  &ct.  (as  in  a 
former  chapter),  or  take  the  affirmation  allowed  in 
England  to  Quakers,  involving  the  same  points  as  the 
oaths,  and  also  the  subscription  to  faith  in  the  Trinity 
and  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures;  and  she  further 
ordered  that  all  persons  willing  to  take  an  oath  in 
public  proceedings  be  allowed  to  do  so,  otherwise  the 
proceedings  to  be  null  and  void.  This  order  was  as 
far  as  possible  followed :  Penn,  not  on  the  spot,  blamed 
his  colonists  for  obeying  what  they  had  a  good  defence 
against.  He  with  his  freemen's  consent  was  author- 
ized to  make  laws  which  were  to  be  in  force  until  dis- 
approved, and  by  such  laws  had  covered  the  case  of 
the  qualifying  of  officers,  requiring  only  a  promise  of 
fidelity  to  the  Sovereign  and  the  Proprietary  and 
promise  to  perform  the  respective  duties.  Acts  of 
Parliament  did  not  bind  the  American  settlements,  to 
override  local  laws  or  the  common  law  of  England, 
unless  the  American  settlements  were  mentioned  in  the 
Act,  and  they  were  not  mentioned  in  the  Acts  pre- 
scribing these  tests,  or  relating  to  Quakers'  affirma- 
tions. The  order  did  not  arrive  in  Pennsylvania  until 
one  of  the  criminals  whom  the  special  court  had  failed 
to  try,  was  on  the  point  of  being  hung.  The  Provincial 
Court,  meeting  on  April  10,  1703,  had  tried  two  cases 
of  murder  without  any  oath  or  affirmation  being  given, 
although  certain  non-Quaker  Judges  and  Moore,  the 
Attorney-General,  declined  to  take  part,  a  substituted 
prosecuting  attorney  being  secured.  A  man  was  con- 
victed of  manslaughter,  for  which,  as  an  offence  within 
"the  benefit  of  clergy,"  he  was  burnt  in  the  hand, 
and  another  person — some  say  a  woman  for  killing  her 


Government  by  Penn's  Friends.  417 

child — was  convicted  of  murder,  and  was  sentenced  to 
death.  The  warrant  for  the  execution  was  sent  to 
Hamilton  at  Amboy,  East  Jersey,  but  he  was  too  ill  to 
sign  it,  and,  without  doing  so,  died  two  days  later. 
When  this  sentencing  to  death  after  trial  by  Quaker 
jurors  not  sworn,  and  not  attested  in  manner  prescribed 
by  Parliament,  was  brought  to  the  attention  of  the 
Lords  for  Trade  through  Lord  Cornbury,  Penn  took 
the  reasonable  ground  that  a  colony  and  constitution 
of  government  made  by  and  for  Quakers  could  not  be 
expected  to  leave  them  and  their  lives  and  fortunes  out 
of  so  essential  a  part  of  government  as  juries,  other- 
wise the  founders  of  the  country  would  have  stayed  at 
home. 

Hamilton's  death  occurred  on  2mo.  (April)  26,  1703: 
his  illness  had  lasted  over  nine  weeks.  It  may  be  said 
that  he  never  settled  in  Pennsylvania.  The  Council 
succeeded  to  the  executive  functions. 

Edward  Shippen,  who  had  occasionally  presided  over 
the  Council  in  Hamilton's  absence,  thus  became  the 
highest  person  in  the  colony,  and  so  continued  for  about 
ten  months.  He  had  been  converted  to  Quakerism  by 
or  upon  marriage  with  a  Quakeress.  The  disadvan- 
tages of  having  a  President  and  other  executives  who 
could  not  conscientiously  administer  an  oath  first  arose 
as  to  registering  vessels.  The  arrangement  hit  upon  by 
the  Council  was  that  John  Bewley,  the  Collector  of  the 
Port,  administer  the  oath  in  the  Council  Chamber,  and 
the  Secretary  certify  it,  and  the  seal  of  the  Province 
be  affixed:  but  Colonel  Quary  declared  such  method 
repugnant  to  the  words  of  the  law,  and  that  he  would 
be  obliged  to  suspend  Bewley,  if  he  did  this.  The 
Queen's  order  having  then  arrived,  and  the  Councillors 
deciding  to  comply  with  it,  and  that  it  was  necessary 
as  acting  Governor  to  take  oath  or  affirmation  under  the 
Acts  relating  to  trade,  they  sent  for  Quary,  Halliwell, 
Moore,  and  Yeates,  commissioners  under  the  old  dedi- 

27 


418  Chkonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

mus  potestatem,  to  administer  such  oath,  but  those  men 
adhered  to  the  letter  of  their  commission  as  authoriz- 
ing an  oath  only,  and  to  be  taken  by  one  Governor,  so 
that  it  could  not  be  administered  to  less  than  all  the 
members,  or  at  least  a  quorum,  i.e.  five.  The  commis- 
sioners were  supposed  to  have  seized  with  pleasure 
upon  this  legal  objection  to  starting  the  machinery  of 
justice,  and  Halliwell  is  reported,  in  a  letter  from 
Quaker  Councillors  to  Penn,  to  have  boasted  that  the 
commissioners  had  laid  the  government  on  its  back,  and 
left  it  sprawling,  unable  to  move  hand  or  foot.  Acting 
under  the  alternative  in  the  dedimus,  by  which  the 
Council  and  the  Collector  of  the  Port  could  administer 
qualifications,  Bewley,  the  Collector,  was  induced  to 
administer  the  oath  to  Guest  and  Finney.  Shippen, 
Carpenter,  Clark,  Owen,  and  Pusey  made  affirmation 
for  the  performance  of  the  same  duty.  All  made  oath 
or  declaration  acknowledging  fidelity,  abhorring  the 
Pope's  supremacy,  &ct.  Subsequently  Guest  and 
Finney  appear  to  have  administered  in  Council  the 
oath  for  registering  vessels. 

Roger  Mompesson,  a  lawyer,  who  had  been  Recorder 
of  Southampton,  and  twice  elected  to  Parliament,  se- 
cured appointment  as  Judge  of  the  Admiralty  for 
Pennsylvania  and  Lower  Counties,  New  Jersey,  and 
New  York,  coming  to  America,  and  making  his  resi- 
dence in  Philadelphia,  in  5mo.,  1703,  to  lead  a  "simple 
life,"  so  as  to  pay  debts,  for  which  he  was  bound,  al- 
though contracted  by  his  father.  Thus  Quary  was 
superseded,  but  he  was  appointed  Surveyor-General  of 
the  Customs.  Penn  hoped  that  the  colony  would  make 
sufficient  allowance  to  induce  Mompesson  to  take  also 
the  Chief  Justiceship  of  the  Provincial  Court. 

When  the  Justices  of  Chester  County  offered  to 
qualify  under  the  Queen's  order,  Yeates  induced  "Walter 
Martin,  who  had  a  dedimus  potestatem  for  administer- 
ing the  affirmations,   to   insist  upon   the   declaration 


Government  by  Penn's  Friends.  419 

against  the  "pretended  Prince  of  Wales",  as  recently- 
prescribed  by  Act  of  Parliament,  but  those  commis- 
sioned refused,  because  the  Act  did  not  extend  to  the 
Province,  and  the  Queen's  order  did  not  mention  that 
oath  or  the  affirmation  in  its  place.  In  the  other  coun- 
ties, and  apparently  in  Chester  later,  the  qualifications 
mentioned  in  her  order  were  taken.  In  the  Philadel- 
phia court,  Hugh  Durborow,  a  Quaker,  called  upon  to 
give  testimony,  refused  to  use  the  form  speaking  of 
the  presence  of  God.  Guest  was  here  reasonable,  and, 
apparently,  with  him  enough  Quaker  Justices  to  make 
a  majority  favored  letting  Durborow  affirm  as  he 
pleased, — for  he  certainly  testified, — although  all  the 
non-Quakers  wished  him  committed  for  contempt  of 
court.  In  one  case  in  Philadelphia,  when  some  wit- 
nesses were  about  to  be  sworn,  the  Quaker  Justices 
left  the  bench,  but  Justices  Guest,  Samuel  Finney, 
Edward  Farmer,  and  Andrew  Bankson  held  court. 

The  trouble  about  administering  oaths  caused  the 
introduction  of  more  non-Quakers  into  executive  and 
judicial  office,  and,  with  the  presence  in  the  dominion  of 
a  sharp-witted  faction  watching  for  questionable  pro- 
ceedings, it  was  imperative  that  the  government  have 
a  non-Quaker  chief  on  the  spot.  Logan  suggested  that, 
pending  the  appointment  of  a  Lieutenant-Governor,  a 
new  Council  be  commissioned  with  Mompesson,  who 
was  a  Churchman,  at  its  head,  and  Logan  later  hoped 
that  Penn  was  making  Mompesson  Lieutenant-Gover- 
nor. 

The  Commissioners  for  Trade  exerted  themselves 
against  the  Assembly's  enhancement  of  the  value  of 
foreign  coin,  one  of  the  acts  of  Nov.  27,  1700,  having, 
with  slight  modification  of  a  former  act,  made  a  Peru 
piece  of  eight  weighing  not  less  than  12  dwt.,  as  well 
as  a  Lion  or  Dog  dollar,  pass  for  6s.,  and  every  other 
piece  of  eight  or  dollar  weighing  15  dwt.,  for  7s.,  with 
an  advance  or  abatement  respectively  of  4rf.  for  every 


420  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

pennyweight  in  excess  or  shortage ;  the  price  of  smaller 
coins  being  also  fixed.  A  representation  for  the  dis- 
allowance of  the  Act  was  made  to  the  Queen,  pointing 
out  that  a  piece  of  eight  of  the  due  weight,  stated  to  be 
17  dwt.  6  gr.,  so  made  current  at  7s.  10d.,  was  intrinsi- 
cally worth  no  more  than  4s.  6d.  On  July  30,  1703,  the 
Act  was  disallowed.  The  English  government,  at 
Penn's  suggestion  that  there  should  be  a  general  stand- 
ard, was  inclined  to  make  the  value  of  these  foreign 
coins  in  the  colonies  the  same  as  in  England,  but  this 
had  been  prevented,  or  at  least  seemed  too  difficult,  the 
late  King  having  consented  to  a  law  of  New  England 
fixing  a  different  value  there.  The  next  best  thing  was 
to  make  all  the  other  colonies  conform  to  the  one:  ac- 
cordingly, on  the  18th  of  June  following  the  disallow- 
ance of  the  Pennsylvania  law,  the  Queen  issued  a 
proclamation  fixing  the  value  from  the  1st  of  the  com- 
ing January  at  the  New  England  rate.  Thereby  pieces 
of  eight  of  Seville  or  Mexico  or  Pillar  pieces,  which 
had  been  passing  in  Pennsylvania  for  eight  shillings, 
were  to  pass  for  six  shillings  only.  Subsequently  an 
Act  of  Parliament  confirmed  this,  to  be  enforced  from 
May  1,  1709. 

After  the  failure,  in  Hamilton's  time,  of  the  attempt 
to  form  a  voluntary  militia,  the  consciences  of  the 
President  and  many  Councillors  restrained  them 
from  taking  any  part  in  the  war.  They  were  free,  how- 
ever, to  enforce  police  authority  upon  persons  within 
their  jurisdiction  who  might  commit  injuries,  or  bring 
about  injuries ;  and  accordingly  the  Council  undertook 
to  watch  such  suspicious  characters  as  Frenchmen,  and 
particularly  those  travelling  through  the  Indian  coun- 
try. The  danger  of  the  Five  Nations  casting  their  lot 
with  the  French  always  existed,  except  when  the  Eng- 
lish had  actually  engaged  the  warriors  for  a  campaign : 
and,  although  no  breach  of  the  alliance  of  those  tribes 
with  the  government  of  New  York  actually  took  place 


Government  by  Penn's  Friends.  421 

during  the  period  of  this  history,  there  was  fear  that 
11  foolish  young  men"  of  the  Iroquois,  or  of  their 
nominal  subjects  or  tributaries,  would  be  stirred  up 
against  the  settlers  of  Pennsylvania.  Of  the  traders 
whom  the  provincial  government  distrusted,  the  treat- 
ment was  severe.  Capt.  Le  Tort's  son  James,  brought 
up  from  infancy  in  the  province,  had  gone  to  Canada 
in  time  of  peace,  but,  after  about  two  years'  stay,  re- 
turned to  Pennsylvania  in  the  Spring  of  1703,  submit- 
ting to  various  examinations,  and  appearing  to  be 
innocent  of  evil  designs.  He  and  Peter  Bezellon,  who 
was  under  still  stronger  suspicion,  because  then  a 
Roman  Catholic,  coming  to  Philadelphia  in  August  fol- 
lowing, were  bound  in  the  heavy  bail  of  £500  stg.  each 
to  hold  no  correspondence  with  the  enemy,  and  to  give 
all  information  coming  to  their  knowledge.  About  a 
year  later,  and  after  a  Lieutenant-Governor  had  taken 
charge,  Le  Tort  was  some  time  in  jail  in  Philadelphia, 
and  was  obliged,  for  obtaining  his  liberty,  to  give  secur- 
ity in  1000/.;  while  Nicholas  Gateau,  the  French  cook, 
who  had  been  naturalized,  but  had  tried  to  leave  Phila- 
delphia secretly  to  escape,  he  said,  his  creditors,  was 
also  detained  in  jail,  and  required  to  give  security  in 
1000Z.  for  good  behavior,  and  not  to  go  out  of  the  juris- 
diction, or  further  from  the  city  than  twenty-five  miles 
up  or  down  the  Delaware  River,  or  than  ten  miles  back 
into  the  country. 

On  hearing  of  Hamilton's  death,  Penn  wrote  quickly 
to  the  Lords  for  Trade,  asking  them,  in  the  emergency, 
to  recommend  either  Markham  or  John  Finney  for 
royal  approbation  as  successor ;  so  that  the  opportunity 
of  a  vessel  then  lading  for  America  be  seized  for  com- 
municating proper  authority  to  some  one  in  the  Prov- 
ince and  Territories.  The  Board  aforesaid,  while  mak- 
ing the  reply  that  it  was  requisite  to  make  the  first 
application  to  her  Majesty,  let  Penn  see  that  the  feeling 
against  Markham  had  not  changed.    Penn  not  knowing 


422  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

how  he  was  to  furnish  security  for  Finney,  it  appears 
that  Charlewood  Lawton,  Perm's  agent,  suggested  for 
the  Lieutenant-Governorship,  a  personal  acquaintance, 
able  to  furnish  his  own  security,  having  some  political 
influence,  and  for  some  reason  willing  to  accept,  viz: 
John  Evans,  about  twenty-six  years  old,  whose  father 
had  been  a  friend  of  the  Proprietary.  It  seems  from 
certain  expressions  in  the  Penn  and  Logan  Correspon- 
dence that  Evans  was  a  nephew  of  Rt.  Rev.  Dr.  John 
Evans,  a  strong  Whig,  made  Bishop  of  Bangor  on  Jany. 
2,  1702.  Penn  quickly  took  what  was  within  reach.  In 
a  few  days  after  the  aforesaid  letter  to  the  Board, 
his  petition  for  young  Evans  was  laid  before  the  Queen. 
The  Board,  having  the  matter  referred  to  it,  asked 
for  information  concerning  him.  To  gain  the  favor  of 
the  Earl  of  Nottingham,  then  a  Secretary  of  State, 
Evans,  entitled  to  a  bond  of  Baron  Dartmouth  to 
Evans's  father,  who  had  been  treasurer  of  a  political 
fund,  released  or  cancelled  the  bond.  Dartmouth  had 
married  a  niece  of  Nottingham.  Dartmouth  himself 
was  one  of  the  Commissioners  for  Trade  and  Planta- 
tions. After  Penn's  explaining  that  Evans  was  not 
under  the  objection  of  being  a  merchant,  and,  although 
not  a  soldier,  had  seen  the  army  in  Flanders,  was  a 
gentleman  living  on  his  estate,  and  was  a  hearty 
Churchman,  and  would  be  recommended  by  a  number 
of  persons,  the  Board  put  no  obstacles  in  the  way  of 
the  approbation.  It  was  given  on  July  30,  1703.  Penn 
again  signed  a  declaration  that  the  Queen's  title  to  the 
Lower  Counties  should  not  be  diminished  by  her  giving 
the  approbation.  Evans  not  only  furnished  the  security 
for  his  own  behavior,  but  actually  reimbursed  Penn 
for  all  that  had  been  spent  in  obtaining  approbation 
for  Hamilton.  Penn,  according  to  his  letter  of  12,  9, 
1705-6,  promised  Evans  200Z.  Penna.  money  per  annum 
until  the  Assembly  would  grant  a  support. 

Lord  Cornbury,  coming  to  Burlington  in  August, 


Government  by  Penn's  Friends.  423 

1703,  after  appointment  as  Governor  of  New  Jersey, 
was  waited  upon  by  Quary  and  other  Philadelphia 
Churchmen,  and  was  reported  to  have  received  an  ad- 
dress from  vestrymen  or  attendants  of  Christ  Church 
requesting  him  to  solicit  the  Queen  for  the  embracing 
of  Pennsylvania  and  probably  Delaware  under  his  gov- 
ernment. He  was  said  to  have  answered  that  he  would 
obey  the  Queen's  orders  with  alacrity  when  orders  to 
such  effect  came.  Notwithstanding  that  he  was  staying 
at  Quary 's,  Cornbury  was  again  entertained  by  the 
Quakers  in  Philadelphia :  but  they  began  to  dread  his 
being  appointed  in  place  of  Penn,  seeing  that  Quary 
and  Moore  would  probably  be  Cornbury 's  advisers  as 
to  Pennsylvania  affairs,  that  the  royal  commission  to 
him  as  Governor  of  New  Jersey  gave  him  great  powers, 
and  required  him  to  administer  oaths,  including  that 
against  the  Pretender,  and  said  nothing  about  affirma- 
tions, and  that  a  man  of  such  rank  would  expect  a  large 
salary. 

In  October,  1703,  eight  Assemblymen  from  each 
county  of  Pennsylvania,  and  two  from  the  City  of 
Philadelphia,  were  chosen ;  they  met,  and  elected  Lloyd 
as  Speaker,  and  made  the  disunion  of  the  Province 
from  the  Territories  an  accomplished  fact.  These 
Assemblymen  were:  Nicholas  Pyle,  John  Bennet, 
Andrew  Job,  David  Lewis,  Nathaniel  Newlin,  Joseph 
Baker,  Robert  Carter,  Joseph  Wood,  William  Biles, 
Joseph  Growdon,  Tobias  Dymmoke,  Richard  Hough, 
William  Paxton,  Jeremiah  Langhorne,  Joshua  Hoopes, 
Thomas  Stevenson,  Rowland  Ellis,  Nicholas  Wain, 
Samuel  Richardson,  Isaac  Norris,  David  Lloyd,  An- 
thony Morris,  Samuel  Cart,  Griffith  Jones,  Joseph  Will- 
cox,  and  Charles  Read. 

Although  Griffith  Jones  refused  at  first  to  do  more 
in  the  way  of  qualifying  than  promise  allegiance  to  the 
Crown  and  fidelity  to  the  government,  yet  in  due  time 
all  the  twenty-six  representatives  signed  the  confession 


424  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

of  faith,  declarations,  test,  &ct.,  as  in  the  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment of  1  W.  &  M.  c.  18. 

The  Council  construing  the  commission  to  themselves 
as  not  giving  power  to  enact  laws,  the  Assembly  re- 
solved to  adjourn  until  3mo.  (May)  1,  contending  for 
the  right  to  sit  upon  their  own  adjournment.  The 
result  was  that  the  Assembly  adjourned  until  that  date, 
unless  sooner  called,  and  the  Council  declared  it  pro- 
rogued to  the  same  time:  but  the  dispute  gave  rise  to 
a  project  to  establish  the  House's  right  by  a  law. 

Evans  published  his  commission  in  Philadelphia  on 
12mo.  3,  1703-4,  having  arrived  the  night  before,  and 
duly  took  the  oaths,  the  least  fitted  by  experi- 
ence of  all  the  persons  selected  by  the  Penns  for  the 
office,  and,  as  it  turned  out,  the  most  discreditable  in 
private  life.  To  intemperance,  which  was  soon  the 
topic  of  common  talk,  there  was  added  in  time  an  item 
of  seduction.  The  great  Quaker  had  been  deceived; 
for  William  Penn,  distracted  as  he  may  have  been  with 
financial  and  political  troubles  in  England,  and  im- 
portant as  it  was  to  fill  the  vacancy  quickly,  was  too 
wise  knowingly  to  send  as  his  representative  one  whose 
loose  living  would  shock  the  staid  people  of  the  colony, 
and  give  a  handle  to  the  anti-Proprietary  faction. 
Apart  and  aloof  from  the  Churchmen  were  some  per- 
sons resentful  against  or  distrustful  of  Penn  who  were 
rigid  Quakers,  and  would  appeal  to  the  ideal  of  a  land 
where  good  men  administered  good  laws. 

Yet,  as  will  be  shown  on  a  later  page,  a  handle  for 
Penn's  enemies  was  to  be  given  by  one  very  near  to 
him,  viz:  his  eldest  surviving  son,  who  came  with 
Evans,  and  whose  debts  had  driven  him  across  the 
water,  leaving  wife  and  children  at  home  to  await  fu- 
ture plans.  He  speedily,  in  connection  with  Logan, 
hired  for  a  city  residence  "Clark's  great  house"  near 
the  S.  W.  corner  of  Third  and  Chestnut.  Mompesson 
soon  joined  them,  and  so  did  Evans,  after  boarding  first 


Government  by  Penn's  Friends.  425 

with  Al  Paxton,  and  afterwards  with  John  Finney. 
For  information  on  business,  but  not  guidance  in  mode 
of  life,  Evans  and  Penn  Jr.  looked  to  Logan.  Hav- 
ing as  Judge  jurisdiction  as  far  north  as  New  Hamp- 
shire, and  being  in  turn  very  soon  superseded  as  to 
Pennsylvania  and  West  Jersey  by  a  new  commission 
reappointing  Quary,  Mompesson  was  usually  away. 
He  and  William  Penn  Jr.  and  Bewley,  the  Collector, 
were  invited  to  become  members  of  the  Council.  Mom- 
pesson qualified  on  February  7,  and  the  younger  Penn 
on  the  8th,  but  Bewley  declined,  because  the  position 
might  be  thought  by  some  to  conflict  with  his  position 
in  the  Customs.  Logan  appears  to  have  qualified  a 
second  time,  immediately  after  the  qualifying  of  the 
Proprietary's  son,  to  whom  was  given  precedence  at 
the  board  over  all  others.  In  the  course  of  ten  days 
after  Evans's  arrival,  William  Rodeney,  William 
Trent,  Richard  Hill,  and  Jasper  Yeates  became  mem- 
bers, and  in  May,  George  Roche,  and  in  October,  Joseph 
Pidgeon. 

Evans  had  come  ignorant  of  there  being  a  split  in 
the  Assembly,  and,  when  he  found  it  necessary  to 
summon  a  legislature,  he  determined,  if  possible,  to 
effect  a  reunion.  He  sent  writs  to  the  Lower  Counties 
for  the  election  of  four  members  each,  but  when  the 
twenty-six  already  chosen  by  Pennsylvania  proper  ap- 
peared, they  insisted  that  they  were  already  a  separate 
House.  The  representatives  of  the  Territories,  among 
whom  were  Rodeney,  Brinckloe,  and  Hill,  thereupon 
announced  their  consent  to  accept  the  Charter,  if  its 
provision  were  complied  with  that  there  be  only  four 
representatives  from  each  of  the  six  counties.  The 
representatives  from  Pennsylvania  replied  that  they 
were  unable  to  recede  from  what  they  had  done,  in- 
cluding the  increase  of  their  number.  So  it  was  settled 
there  should  be  a  separate  House  for  the  Territories, 


426  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

its  members  to  be  chosen  by  new  writs,  and  to  meet  in 
New  Castle. 

When  the  Assembly  of  the  Province  convened,  Evans 
asked  for  a  salary  for  himself,  and  the  raising  of  the 
£350  fixed  by  the  late  King  for  the  building  of  fortifica- 
tions in  the  province  of  New  York.  The  House,  in  a  very 
courteous  message,  expressed  anxiety  as  to  the  allow- 
ance of  the  laws  by  the  Crown,  and  referred  to  the 
former  excuse  as  to  the  £350.  In  a  reply,  which  again 
urged  the  relief  of  the  Proprietary  by  the  assumption 
of  the  acting  Governor's  sujjport,  and  even  asked  for 
making  good  Penn  's  promise  of  allowance  to  Hamilton, 
Evans  angered  the  members  by  arguing  the  insuffi- 
ciency of  the  excuse  for  not  voting  money  to  the  Queen. 

More  serious  than  Evans's  wounding  of  the  Assem- 
blymen's sensibilities  in  contradicting  their  mind,  was 
that  Penn's  commission  to  Evans  had  reserved  the 
final  assent  to  all  laws.  This  instance  of  depriving  the 
Deputy  of  the  power  to  represent  the  principal  had  to 
be  brought  to  the  scrutiny  of  so  acute  and  so  ill  dis- 
posed a  lawyer  as  Lloyd,  and  nearly  caused  the  Assem- 
bly to  declare  the  commission  void.  The  heir-apparent 's 
most  important  political  act  while  in  America  was 
joining  with  the  other  Councillors,  Mompesson  among 
them,  in  deciding,  in  response  to  the  Assembly's  ques- 
tion, that  the  clause  was  void,  but  did  not  invalidate  the 
rest  of  the  commission,  and  that  the  bills  which  the 
Lieutenant-Governor  passed  into  laws,  and  to  which  the 
great  seal  was  affixed,  could  not  be  annulled  by  the 
Proprietary  without  the  vote  of  the  Assembly.  This 
declaration  was  made  on  3rd  month  23,  1704.  Logan, 
while  saying  that  it  was  clearly  right,  explained  to 
Penn  that  the  Councillors  would  not  have  made  it,  had 
they  not  seen  that  the  Assembly  would  do  nothing  with- 
out it. 

After  the  Assembly  had  voted  an  address  to  the 
Queen  congratulating  her  upon  her  accession,  the  ob- 


Government  by  Penn's  Fbiends.  427 

liviousness  of  the  members  to  their  representing  any 
but  one  religious  denomination  was  shown  in  entitling 
another  address  to  her,  which  they  unanimously 
adopted,  ''The  humble  address  of  the  People  called 
Quakers  convened  in  Assembly  at  Philadelphia."  By 
the  prayer  with  which  this  Address  closed,  we  see  that 
the  Assemblymen,  and  presumably  most  of  their 
Quaker  constituents,  were  willing  to  make  affirmation 
' '  in  the  presence  of  Almighty  God. ' '  The  Address  said 
that,  at  the  time  of  the  grant  to  Penn,  the  tract  called 
Pennsylvania  was  little  cultivated,  and  the  few  inhabi- 
tants were  Dutch,  Fins,  and  Swedes,  "whose  manner 
of  living  was  of  small  advantage  to  the  Crown  of  Eng- 
land;" that,  in  hopes  of  enjoying  the  liberties  granted, 
a  considerable  colony  of  Quakers  with  some  of  other 
persuasions  came  over,  and  made  great  improvements, 
and  others  differing  from  them  in  religious  matters  had 
become  sharers  of  the  government,  which  was  carried 
on  by  the  obligation  of  a  solemn  attestation  under  the 
local  laws,  without  oaths,  the  taking  or  administering 
of  which  was  against  the  religious  persuasion  of  the 
Quakers,  still  the  most  considerable  inhabitants  for 
number  and  estates;  that  some  of  the  Quakers  who 
might  be  serviceable  in  courts  of  judicature  were  ex- 
cluded by  the  effect  of  the  royal  order  in  Council  of 
Jany.  21,  1702,  requiring  the  administration  of  oaths 
to  those  willing  to  take  them ;  that  those  who  wished  to 
introduce  oaths  had  often  declared  their  willingness  to 
take  the  said  solemn  affirmation  wherever  the  life  of  a 
subject  was  not  in  question :  therefore  those  addressing 
the  Queen  prayed  her  to  grant  that  the  affirmation  pre- 
scribed by  Act  of  Parliament  to  be  taken  by  Quakers 
might  be  allowed  to  all  persons  and  on  all  occasions 
instead  of  an  oath.  The  Assembly  drafted  a  provincial 
law  to  this  effect,  to  be  adopted  when  the  Queen  showed 
herself  favorable.     Evans,  on  the  other  hand,  issued 


428  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

a  proclamation  declaring  the  judicial  proceedings  null 
and  void  when  carried  on  without  oath. 

Penn's  financial  circumstances  were  by  this  time 
distracting.  He  had  paid,  but  not  promptly,  some  of 
the  interest  on  the  Ford  account  accruing  since  April 
1,  1697.  Ford,  however,  had  seen  by  the  time  of  Penn's 
second  arrival  in  America  that  there  would  be  a  default 
in  paying  the  redemption  money  on  April  1,  1700,  and 
had  determined  to  stand  upon  the  rights  which  the 
face  of  the  papers  executed  between  Penn  and  himself 
gave  him.  "Not  having  the  fear  of  God  before  his 
eyes,"  as  many  men  and  many  women  have  not  when 
making  their  wills,  although  such  action,  if  unrecalled, 
will  be  the  parting  act  of  their  lives,  Philip  Ford  made 
a  will  dated  Jany.  21,  1699,  speaking  of  his  having  pur- 
chased Pennsylvania  and  Delaware,  and  giving  said 
land  to  trustees  to  sell.  He  made  a  proviso  that,  if  in 
Ford's  lifetime  or  within  six  months  after  his  death, 
William  Penn  paid  £11134  8s.  3d.,  and  all  arrears  still 
due  on  April  1  following  the  date  of  the  will,  and  all 
other  debts  due,  the  trustees  should  convey  the  land  to 
Penn :  but  this  proviso,  Ford  declared  to  be  a  voluntary 
kindness  to  Penn,  and  not  the  result  of  any  obligation. 
By  April  1, 1700,  Penn  had  not  by  redeeming  prevented 
such  a  will  from  becoming  operative,  and,  on  April  1, 
1701,  the  lease  had  expired  with  the  rent  about  paid  up. 
Ford  died  on  Jany.  8,  1701  (O.  S.  ?).  His  widow  and 
children,  beneficiaries  of  his  will,  had  an  account  stated 
with  Penn,  by  which  he  owed  on  April  1,  1702,  £591 
8s.  lOd.  over  and  above  the  principal  represented  by 
the  redemption  price.  Although  he  continued  to  pay 
at  short  intervals  small  amounts,  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  pay  the  principal. 

There  was,  to  be  sure,  a  large  amount  of  indebted- 
ness due  apparently  from  Americans  for  land,  Logan 
holding  bonds  in  1705  for  about  2000J.,  but  the  realiza- 
tion of  such  must  await  the  debtors '  pleasure  and  abil- 


Government  by  Penn's  Friends.  429 

ity.  Perm  appears  to  have  brought  home  to  England 
no  ready  money  but  what  was  soon  called  for,  nor  did 
lie  find  any  considerable  balance  awaiting  him  there. 
Much  lobbying  against  the  bill  to  abolish  proprietary 
government  had  been  done  by  William  Jr.  It  was  an 
age  of  fees  instead  of  salaries,  and  consequently  of 
perquisites,  extortion,  and  corruption.  The  elder  Penn 
rather  complained  that  the  young  agent,  in  his  zeal, 
had  promised  too  much.  Apart  from  anything  like 
bribery  of  statesmen,  the  mere  attendance  upon  them 
involved  outlay.  The  cost  of  the  Proprietary's  sojourn 
in  London  after  return  from  America,  and  other  ex- 
penses to  fight  the  aforesaid  bill,  to  promote  the  allow- 
ance of  the  laws,  and  to  attend  to  other  affairs  of  the 
colony,  were  said  by  him  to  have  been  over  £3000  by 
July,  1704.  Besides  there  was  the  money  to  be  paid  to 
make  up  the  income  of  Laetitia's  dowry,  and  to  sup- 
plement for  William  Jr.  's  wants  the  estate  of  Worming- 
hurst,  which,  moreover,  being  absorbed  by  William  Jr., 
had  ceased  to  be  profitable  to  the  family  at  large. 
William  Jr.  was  living  at  his  father's  expense  during 
the  stay  in  Pennsylvania.  The  Proprietary  was  cha- 
grined when  he  found  that  he  was  to  maintain  two 
houses,  that  at  Pennsbury,  and  the  Clark  house,  which 
the  heir-apparent,  instead  of  boarding  when  not  at 
Pennsbury,  hired  for  a  city  residence  for  himself  and 
the  Secretary.  Little  money  was  coming  from  Penn- 
sylvania, where  the  cost  of  administration  took  so  much 
of  the  ordinary  receipts.  The  tax  imposed  for  the 
Proprietary's  benefit  was  withheld  by  many;  the  im- 
post in  its  second  year  became  inconsiderable,  because 
the  previous  drought  in  Barbados  lessened  the  amount 
of  rum  coming  thence  to  Pennsylvania  to  one  third  as 
much  as  had  been  coming;  the  subscriptions  to  the 
Susquehanna  venture  to  a  great  extent  failed  to  be  paid, 
and  what  payments  were  made  were  in  wheat  and  flour ; 
partly  because  of  the  war,  sales  of  land  were  pretty 


430  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

much  at  an  end ;  and  quit  rents  were  usually  in  arrears. 
When  there  was  any  balance  to  be  put  into  William 
Penn's  hands,  such  was  the  scarcity  in  the  colony  of 
cash,  and  of  bills  of  exchange  on  England,  that,  practi- 
cally, the  only  way  of  forwarding  the  amount  was  to 
invest  in  a  cargo,  and  ship  the  same  at  the  risk  of  bad 
market,  storm,  and  capture.  A  number  of  vessels  trad- 
ing from  Pennsylvania  were  taken. 

Penn's  principal  source  of  revenue  had  once  been  his 
estate  in  Ireland.  He  wrote,  12,  24,  1702,  that  that 
country  had  " hardly  any  money:  England  severe  to 
her,  no  trade  but  hither  and  at  England's  mercy  for 
prices,  saving  butter  and  meat  to  Flanders  and  the 
West  Indies,  that  we  must  go  and  eat  out  half  our  rents, 
or  we  cannot  enjoy  them;"  and  he  mentioned  that  the 
exchange  from  Ireland  to  England  was  twenty-six  per 
cent. 

In  these  difficulties,  as  he  found  that  his  Governor- 
ship was  not  likely  to  be  taken  forcibly  from  him  by 
Parliament,  he  thought  of  making  a  sale  of  it  to  the 
Crown.  While  waiting  an  opportunity  for  this,  or  as 
an  alternative,  he  devised  an  arrangement  for  his  re- 
turn to  Pennsylvania,  asking,  in  a  letter  of  2mo.  1, 
1703,  for  "the  town" — probably  the  well-to-do  citizens 
of  Philadelphia — to  build  for  him  on  one  of  his  City 
lots  or  his  liberty  land  "a  pretty  box  like  Ed.  Ship- 
pen's,"  or  to  purchase  Griffith  Owen's,  Thomas  Fair- 
man's,  Daniel  Pegg's,  or  any  such  house,  Pennsbury 
house  being  too  small  to  hold  the  entire  family  includ- 
ing William  Penn  Jr's ;  and,  in  addition  to  this  present, 
costing,  Penn  supposed,  500£.  to  6001.,  he  wished  an 
allowance,  perhaps  by  tax,  of  500Z.  a  year.  There  was 
no  response  to  this. 

Penn  wrote  on  May  11,  1703,  to  the  Board  of  Trade, 
that,  seeing  the  bent  extremely  strong  to  bring  all 
proprietary  governments  directly  under  the  Crown,  he 
was  willing,  if  there  could  be  a  just  regard  for  his  and 


Government  by  Penn's  Friends.  431 

his  people's  security  in  their  civil  rights  according  to 
the  laws  and  constitution  of  the  country,  to  resign  the 
government,  saving  some  few  privileges,  upon  a  rea- 
sonable pecuniary  satisfaction  to  him.  The  Commis- 
sioners wishing  to  know  his  terms,  he  sent  word  in  the 
following  month:  the  Lower  Counties — he  meant  the 
soil  therof — were  to  be  duly  patented  to  him,  all  rights 
as  lord  of  the  soil  of  the  Province  to  remain,  he  and 
his  heirs  to  have  the  right  to  present  at  each  vacancy 
two  names,  from  which  the  Crown  should  choose  the 
Governor,  also  £30,000  to  be  paid  to  Penn  with  a  royalty 
— presumably  perpetual — of  \d.  per  pound  of  tobacco 
and  per  I.  of  what  sums  the  people  paid  the  Governor ! 
This  was,  of  course,  "an  asking  price."  Yet  it  must 
be  remembered  that  in  1700  he  declared  that  the  colony 
had  then  cost  him  in  the  clear  £24,000,  and,  a  year  after 
this  offer,  he  wrote  to  Logan  that  Pennsylvania  had 
cost  him  above  £30,000  more  than  he  had  gotten  out  of 
it.  Penn  desired  also  that  he  and  his  heirs  should  have 
some  honorary  distinction,  in  recognition  of  his  being 
the  Founder,  such  as  first  Councillor  or  Chief  Justice : 
but  upon  this  he  did  not  insist,  being  ready  to  content 
himself  with  the  rights  of  landlord.  Neither  did  he 
long  hold  out  for  the  £30,000,  but  on  or  before  Feb.  9, 
1703-4,  wrote  to  the  Lord  High  Treasurer  that  he  was 
willing  to  accept  £20,000  for  the  Governorship. 

Harassed  by  the  fault  finding  of  Quary  and  Moore, 
Penn  offered  to  the  Commissioners  for  Trade,  about 
the  time  Evans  was  arriving  in  Pennsylvania,  either 
to  sell  out,  or  to  have  the  "turbulent  Churchmen" 
bought  out,  probably  meaning  to  pay  Quary,  Moore, 
and  others  to  move  away.  Some  of  the  Commisioners, 
perhaps  because  of  the  Queen's  kind  feeling  for  Penn, 
expressed  a  wish  that  the  latter  alternative  could  take 
place ;  whereupon  Penn  desired  them  to  promote  it,  and 
assured  them  that  he  could  find  four  persons  able  and 
willing  to  provide  for  it.    Who  were  the  three  besides 


432  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Shippen,  or  the  two  besides  Shippen  and  himself?  The 
aforesaid  solution  of  trouble  was  not  effected.  While 
Lowther  had  been  made  Attorney-General  of  the  Prov- 
ince, Moore  had,  on  Bewley's  death,  obtained  from 
Quary,  Surveyor-General  of  the  Customs,  the  good  post 
of  Collector  of  the  Port  of  Philadelphia,  and  kept  it 
during  the  rest  of  his  life.  At  times  hesitating,  and  at 
times  asking  the  advice  of  Logan  and  others,  and 
generally  encouraged  by  Logan  on  condition  that 
Quaker  rights  could  be  protected,  Penn  kept  alive  the 
project  of  turning  into  cash  the  political  authority 
which  had  cost  him  so  much. 

Not  only  were  Penn's  friends  who  were  intrusted 
with  his  authority  in  the  Province  and  Territories  par- 
ticularly bound,  in  taking  care  of  his  interests,  so  to 
act  as  to  avoid  giving  to  Parliament  any  provocation 
to  confiscate  his  viceroyalty ;  but,  imbued  with  devotion 
to  him,  and  seeing  his  necessities,  they  undertook,  in 
opposition  to  the  scheme  of  representative  government, 
the  policy  of  nursing  and  strengthening  every  limb  of 
his  prerogative,  so  that  the  selling  value  of  this  piece 
of  property — the  powers,  revenues,  and  patronage  be- 
ing recognized  as  property — should  be  great  when  he 
treated  with  the  Crown. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

The  Anti-Proprietary  Party. 

Feelings  of  various  elements  of  the  population 
— The  City  magistrates — The  Assembly  contends 
with  Evans — A  Remonstrance  ordered  to  be  sent 
to  the  Proprietary — The  Militia — William  Penn 
Jr.  in  a  row  with  the  City  watchmen — Is  indicted 
in  Mayor's  Court,  and  leaves  the  colony — Lloyd 
writes  the  Remonstrance  and  a  letter  to  eminent 
English  Quakers — The  Assembly  of  1704 — A 
"great  fray,"  in  which  Evans  receives  a  beating — 
The  Assemblymen's  attitude  as  to  Lloyd's  Re- 
monstrance^— Biles's  disrespectful  words  about 
Evans — The  Ganawese  and  Shawnees — Some  of 
the  former  move  to  Tulpehocken — The  Fords 
bring  suit  in  Chancery,  and  claim  possession 
of  Pennsylvania  and  Territories — Proprietary's 
friends  carry  election  of  1705 — Legislation — Re- 
ligious qualification  for  officers  and  religious 
affirmation  adopted — Law  as  to  intercourse  with 
Indians — Revenue  Act — Change  as  to  Sheriff  and 
Coroner — Assemblymen  to  be  chosen  by  plurality 
vote — Unpleasant  circumstances  of  the  old  Quaker 
families. 

Preceding  chapters  have  mentioned  Swedish  suspi- 
cion, David  Lloyd's  resentment,  Keithian  opposition, 
Custom  House  officers'  interests,  and  Anglican  rivalry, 
as  well  as  some  purchasers'  real  or  supposed,  greater 
or  less,  suffering  in  property,  such  as  prompted  the 
struggle  with  Penn  at  the  close  of  his  second  visit. 
It  has  also  been  shown  that  the  Quaker  settlers  of  the 
general  type  were  democratic,  querulous,  and  self-im- 
portant, and,  with  a  certain  amount  of  gratitude  to 

28 


434  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Penn  and  amenableness  to  his  personal  influence,  looked 
upon  themselves  as  partners  with  him  in  the  great 
colonial  venture.  They  had  left  home,  and  subdued 
the  wilderness,  in  order  to  enjoy  privileges.  A  war 
ending  in  1697  and  one  lasting  from  1702  to  1713  took 
away,  either  by  capture  at  sea,  or  scarcity  and  high 
price  of  European  articles,  or  cessation  of  immigration, 
much  of  the  money  profit  of  their  labor.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  persons  so  situated  grudged  every  shilling 
for  which  Penn  asked. 

The  inconvenience  of  proprietary  governments  to  the 
empire  at  large  has  been  mentioned  in  the  chapter  on 
England.  To  the  inhabitants  of  the  locality  subjected, 
such  a  government  might  become  intolerable.  Liberty 
had  flourished  in  Pennsylvania,  because  of  the  enlight- 
ened ideas  of  the  Proprietary  who  founded  the  colony : 
but  was  it  fair  that  those  who  were  maintaining  by 
great  hardship  civilization  in  remote  regions,  and  were 
still  bound  by  their  duties  to  the  King,  should  have  a 
second  lord  and  master?  Particularly  when,  after  the 
first  Proprietary  must  pass  away,  his  successor,  com- 
ing by  birth  or  purchase,  would  be  neither  the  King's 
nor  the  People's  choice? 

The  opponents  of  Penn  other  than  the  Crown  officials 
with  some  Churchmen,  were  not  desirous  of  abolishing 
his  viceroyalty,  the  basis  of  the  colony's  independent 
and  improved  jurisprudence;  nor  was  the  experience 
of  those  colonies  of  which  the  Governors  were  selected 
by  the  Crown,  in  the  high  salaries  and  military  exac- 
tions and  ecclesiastical  arbitrariness,  encouraging  for 
a  change.  In  fact,  that  Penn  was  inclined  to  allow  such 
a  change  was  looked  upon  as  a  betrayal.  All  that  his 
opponents  and  the  majority  of  the  freemen  wanted  was 
to  cut  down  expenses,  and  to  minimize  his  power  and 
more  particularly  the  power  of  his  Deputies. 

The  City  Corporation  very  soon  fell  into  the  hands 
of  those  inimical  to  Penn,  Lloyd  becoming  Recorder 


The  Anti-Proprietary  Party.  435 

in  place  of  Story,  and,  after  Shippen's  two  terms  as 
Mayor,  that  office  being  held  by  Anthony  Morris, 
Griffith  Jones,  and  Joseph  Willcox  successively.  After 
the  Queen's  order,  the  fact  that  Lloyd  and  nearly  all  of 
the  Aldermen  were  Quakers,  made  the  Mayor's  Court 
and  those  Aldermen  acting  as  magistrates  the  only 
judiciary  representing  the  religious  society  opposed  to 
oaths.  Thus  the  favor  of  many  Assemblies  was  en- 
listed. 

The  first  Assembly  with  which  Evans  came  in  contact 
endeavored,  by  proposing  certain  laws,  to  have  the  City 
Corporation  strengthened,  to  state  the  powers  of  the 
House,  and  to  confirm  property.  At  the  same  time,  it 
was  unanimously  voted  to  raise  1000/.,  and  to  send  100/. 
thereof  to  agents  to  be  selected,  rather  in  place  of  Penn, 
for  attending  the  Attorney-General  or  Solicitor-Gen- 
eral and  Board  of  Trade  to  obtain  the  Queen's  appro- 
bation of  the  laws :  but  disputes  with  the  Lieutenant- 
Governor,  recess,  and  adjournment  prevented  the  per- 
fecting of  a  bill  for  raising  money,  it  being  the  determi- 
nation of  the  People 's  representatives  to  grant  nothing 
unless  satisfaction  were  received.  They  were,  at  the 
same  time,  great  sticklers  for  respect  to  be  shown  to 
the  House,  and  some  remarks  of  Councillor  Guest  in 
public  and  private  ridiculing  it,  and  speaking  of  pro- 
posed laws  as  absurd,  unreasonable,  and  monstrous, 
caused  a  vote  that  he  should  be  rebuked;  non-compli- 
ance with  which,  by  the  Lieutenant-Governor,  may  have 
added  to  the  ill  feeling.  Evans  and  his  Councillors 
deemed  preposterous  the  powers  given  in  the  bill  re- 
lating to  the  City  Corporation,  and  as  not  sufficiently 
careful  of  the  Proprietary's  interests  the  bill  for  con- 
firming property.  These  bills  were  in  fact  smothered 
in  Council  rather  than  fought.  The  great  contention 
arose  from  the  bill  for  the  confirmation  of  the  Charter 
of  Privileges,  or  Frame  of  Government.  This  bill  de- 
clared the  Governor  unable  to  prorogue  or  dissolve  the 


436  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Assembly.  Such  power,  Evans  and  his  advisers  did  not 
consider  to  have  been  relinquished  by  the  Proprietary, 
and  therefore  did  not  think  the  Lieutenant-Governor 
had  any  right  to  bind  the  Proprietary  to  forego,  al- 
though the  Assembly  offered  to  limit  the  length  of  the 
sessions,  except  when  the  Governor  consented.  One  of 
several  amendments  proposed  by  Evans  gave  the  Coun- 
cil a  part  in  legislation:  this  was  rejected,  one  of  the 
unanimous  resolves  of  the  Assembly  on  6mo.  10  being 
that  it  would  be  inconsistent  with  King  Charles 's  patent 
and  the  Charter  of  1701,  except  when  the  government 
(the  Lieutenant-Governorship)  were  vested  in  the 
Council,  which  the  House  was  willing  should  happen 
on  the  death  of  a  Lieutenant-Governor,  unless  there 
should  be  some  other  provision  by  the  Governor-in- 
Chief.  The  Assemblymen  decided  to  adjourn,  and  so  to 
leave  the  subject  to  their  successors,  and  asked  the 
Lieutenant-Governor  to  think  over  the  bills  meanwhile. 
Accordingly,  an  order  was  made  that  the  Speaker,  who 
seems  to  have  been  regarded  as  something  like  the 
Clerk  of  a  Quaker  Meeting,  should  have  the  minutes 
for  the  year  prepared,  and  take  the  advice  of  Biles, 
Willcox,  Morris,  Norris,  Wood,  Jones,  and  Richardson 
or  as  many  of  them  or  others  of  the  body  as  could  be 
conveniently  consulted,  about  the  minutes  being  pub- 
lished. Thus  the  phraseology  of  the  minutes  was  left 
to  be  perfected  later  by  Lloyd,  whose  consulting  others 
was  practically  optional.  It  was  ordered  on  6mo.  25 
that  a  representation  to  the  Proprietary  be  prepared 
by  the  Speaker,  Norris,  and  Willcox,  and  be  brought 
into  the  House  the  next  day,  they  to  deal  plainly  with 
the  Proprietary  concerning  the  privileges  and  immuni- 
ties which  he  promised  to  the  People,  and  how  incon- 
sistent and  repugnant  thereto  was  his  commission  to 
the  present  Deputy,  as  well  as  former  orders  and  pro- 
ceedings, how  the  People  were  wronged  and  deprived 
of  those  privileges,  how  they  were  injured  in  their 


The  Anti-Proprietary  Party.  437 

properties,  and  what  inconveniences  had  happened 
from  the  Proprietary's  not  passing  the  bill  for  regu- 
lating fees  proposed  to  him  in  1701.  Willcox  reported 
on  the  26th  that  the  committee  of  three  had  made  little 
progress,  and  could  not  finish;  but  Lloyd,  as  he  avows 
(see  Penn  and  Logan  Correspondence,  Vol.  II,  p.  407), 
had  written  nine  articles  to  be  embodied,  and,  the 
House  resolving  that  the  subject  matter  be  forthwith 
drawn  up,  these  were  proposed,  and,  although,  so  near 
adjournment,  some  of  the  members  were  not  paying 
attention,  the  articles  were  read,  somewhat  amended, 
and  agreed  to  without  one  vote  in  the  negative,  and  the 
representation  was  ordered  to  be  drawn  according  to 
those  heads,  and  to  be  perused  by  the  members  who 
were  to  peruse  the  minutes.  Some  time  afterwards, 
certain  members,  who  may  be  called  fickle  or  weak- 
kneed,  frightened  at  the  turn  resulting  from  their  ac- 
tion or  complaisance,  said  that  they  had  not  heard  the 
articles,  and  had  had  confidence  that  the  committee 
would  be  very  respectful  to  the  Proprietary — in  what 
member  except  Norris  could  they  have  had  such  confi- 
dence I — and  that  the  whole  House  would  hear  and  vote 
upon  the  Remonstrance  before  it  were  sent — but  when 
could  that  be,  the  immediate  aljournment  being  final? 
There  can  be  very  little  doubt  that  the  interlineation 
by  Lloyd  himself,  who  had  control  of  the  minutes,  to 
the  effect  that  the  Representation  be  signed  by  the 
Speaker,  and  sent  to  the  Proprietary  by  the  first  oppor- 
tunity, expressed  what  was  ordered. 

Certain  proceedings  of  Evans  and  some  of  his  Coun- 
cillors gave  the  City  Corporation  some  grievances.  The 
militia  had  increased  in  Philadelphia  to  three  com- 
panies, under  Captains  Lowther,  George  Roche,  and 
John  Finney,  and  on  4mo.  13,  1704,  gave  a  military 
funeral  to  the  old  naval  veteran,  former  Lieutenant- 
Governor  Markham.  To  encourage  enlisting,  a  procla- 
mation was  issued  by  the  Governor  relieving  all  who 


438  Chronicles  op  Pennsylvania. 

were  on  the  muster  rolls  from  the  duties  of  watch  and 
ward,  which  the  City  authorities  enforced  upon  all  the 
citizens.  Guest,  Samuel  Finney,  Roche,  and  Pidgeon, 
put  into  the  County  Court  in  order  to  administer  oaths, 
claimed  a  concurrent  jurisdiction  with  the  Mayor's 
Court  in  licensing  drinking  places;  and  it  was  only 
after  approval  of  the  County  Court  was  obtained  that 
the  Governor  issued  any  license.  A  third  source  of 
complaint  was  the  protection  given  to  a  tavern  keeper, 
after  conviction  in  the  Mayor's  Court  for  a  misde- 
meanor, the  charge  apparently  having  resulted  largely 
from  the  conduct  of  William  Penn  Jr. 

Young  Penn's  natural  inclinations  for  livelier  com- 
pany than  the  older  Quakers,  and  his  knowledge  that 
his  Quaker  family  could  not  retain  the  government  un- 
less non-Quakers  undertook  the  defence  of  the  region, 
made  him  the  friend  and  champion  of  the  militia  offi- 
cers, although  he  still  belonged  to  the  peace-loving 
Society,  and  had  written  to  Logan  two  years  before: 
"as  for  the  poking-iron  [sword],  I  never  had  courage 
enough  to  wear  one  by  my  side."  One  evening,  not 
long  after  the  Governor's  proclamation  excusing  the 
militia  from  watch  and  ward,  the  City  watchmen,  as 
Logan  gives  the  account  in  a  letter  to  the  Proprietary, 
"meeting  with  a  company  at  Enoch  Story's,  a  tavern, 
in  which  some  of  the  militia  officers  were,  a  difference 
arose,  that  ended  with  some  rudeness.  Next  night, 
the  watch  coming  again  to  the  same  place,  and  thy 
son  happening  to  be  in  company,  there  was  something 
of  a  fray  which  ended  in  the  watch  retiring."  This 
was  a  euphemistic  way  of  describing  it  to  the  young 
man's  father,  if  Watson  the  Annalist  has  preserved  the 
truth  in  the  statement  following:  "Penn  called  for 
pistols  to  pistol  them,  but  the  lights  being  put  out,  one 
fell  upon  young  Penn,  and  gave  him  a  severe  beating." 
If  he  did  call  for  pistols,  the  case  is  made  out  that  he 
was  drunk.    Before  his  arrival  in  the  country,  his  father 


The  Anti-Proprietary  Party.  439 

had  written  to  Logan  not  to  let  him  be  in  any  public 
house  after  the  allowed  hours.  The  severe  beating  may 
have  been  confused  with  that  given  to  Governor  Evans 
after  young  Penn  had  left  the  colony.  Isaac  Norris 
wrote  that  William  Penn  Jr.  was  "in  company  with 
some  extravagants  that  beat  the  watch  at  Enoch 
Story's."  Logan  goes  on  to  say:  "This  with  all  the 
persons  concerned  in  it,  was  taken  notice  of  at  the  next 
Mayor's  court  that  sat" — i.e.  on  Sep.  3,  Morris  being 
Mayor,  and  Lloyd  being  Recorder,  and  probably  gloat- 
ing over  the  opportunity  to  hurt  the  elder  Penn.  The 
grand  jury  made  a  virtue  of  being  no  respecter  of  per- 
sons; but  Logan  says  that  the  indignity  of  a  present- 
ment put  upon  the  eldest  son  of  the  founder  of  the 
Corporation,  although  no  further  action  was  taken, 
was  looked  upon  as  base  by  most  people  of  moderation, 
and,  in  fact,  caused  some  obstreperousness — he  says 
"disorders" — at  night,  which  he  acquits  William  Jr.  of 
instigating.  Certainly  the  act  of  the  Corporation  was 
resented  by  the  heir  apparent  himself,  and  afterwards 
by  the  Proprietary.  Story  was  proceeded  against  for 
entertaining  at  the  house  certain  servants  of  William 
Bevan,  whereupon  Story's  counsel  claimed  that,  under 
the  Queen's  order,  a  certain  non-Quaker  witness  for  the 
prosecution  should  be  sworn.  None  of  the  Court  being 
conscientiously  able  to  administer  an  oath,  the  witness 
was  allowed  to  be  attested,  and  Story  was  convicted. 
He  appealed  to  the  Governor  and  Council  on  7ber  15, 
and,  following  the  Queen's  order,  a  proclamation  was 
issued  setting  aside  the  proceedings,  and  forbidding 
all  officers  from  executing  any  writ  founded  thereon. 
AVilliam  Penn  Jr.  attended  that  meeting  of  the  Council, 
but  none  later.  To  show  his  contempt  for  the  strict 
Quakers,  he  drank  toasts,  and  appeared  in  fashionable 
clothes  when  Lady  Cornbury  made  a  visit  from  Bur- 
lington to  Philadelphia, — this  is  the  way  we  must  trans- 
late Logan's  statement  that  William  Jr.  "indulged 


440  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

himself  in  the  same  freedom  that  others  take," — but  he 
still  declared  his  adherence  to  Quaker  doctrine.  He 
entertained  Lord  and  Lady  Cornbury  at  Pennsbury, 
and  came  back  to  Philadelphia  to  assist  in  receiving 
Governor  Seymour  of  Maryland,  and  then,  having  sold 
Williamstadt  manor  on  the  Schuylkill  (now  Norristown 
and  Norriton  township),  left  America,  fated  never  to 
return. 

Lloyd,  consulting  Willcox  and  Jones,  wrote,  as  we 
are  told  (Penn  and  Logan  Correspondence,  Vol.  I,  p. 
331)  a  ''most  virulent  unmannerly  invective"  as  the 
Representation,  or  Remonstrance,  to  the  Proprietary, 
but,  indeed,  to  make  an  invective,  there  was  required 
very  little  change  in  the  words  of  the  heads  agreed 
upon  by  the  Assembly.  These  heads  were  viz :  1st,  that 
the  Proprietary's  artifices  brought  all  privileges  and 
charters  to  be  defeasible  at  his  will  and  pleasure ;  2nd, 
that  all  dissolutions  and  prorogations  and  calling  As- 
semblies by  writs,  as  authorized  by  commissions  to  the 
present  Deputy  and  orders  to  former  Deputies  and 
Commissioners,  were  contrary  to  the  charters  granted; 
3rd,  that  the  Proprietary  had  had  great  sums  of  money 
for  negotiating  the  confirmation  of  laws  and  good  terms 
for  the  people,  and  easing  as  to  oaths,  but  none  of  the 
laws  were  confirmed,  and,  by  the  Queen's  order  requir- 
ing oaths  to  be  administered,  the  Quakers  were  dis- 
abled to  sit  in  Courts ;  4th,  that  there  had  been  no  Sur- 
veyor-General since  Pennington's  death,  but  great  ex- 
tortions by  surveyors  and  the  other  officers  concerned  in 
property  by  the  Proprietary's  refusal  to  pass  the  law 
regulating  fees;  5th,  that  there  was  likely  to  be  no 
remedy  except  where  particularly  granted  by  the  Pro- 
prietary, because  the  present  deputy  called  it  a  hard- 
ship on  him,  and  the  Council  urged  it  as  absurd  and 
unreasonable,  to  expect  any  enlargement  or  explana- 
tion of  what  the  Proprietary  granted;  6th,  that  there 
was  no  remedy  against  wrong  or  oppression  by  the 


The  Anti-Proprietary  Party.  441 

Proprietary,  because  his  Clerk  of  the  Court  refused  to 
make  out  any  process,  and,  by  the  Justices  appointed 
by  the  Proprietary,  the  latter  was  practically  judge  of 
his  own  case;  7th,  that,  Sheriffs  and  other  officers 
commissioned  by  him  being  persons  of  no  estates,  and 
their  security  being  given  to  him,  the  abused  or  de- 
frauded persons  could  reap  no  benefit;  8th,  that  the 
Commissioners  of  Property  neglected  and  delayed 
making  satisfaction  where  people  had  not  the  full 
quantity  of  land ;  and,  9th,  that  the  Proprietary  should 
not  surrender  the  government,  as  he  had  intimated,  and 
should  understand  how  vice  was  growing  of  late. 
Lloyd  did  not  show  the  Eemonstrance  to  Norris,  the 
other  member  of  the  committee  of  three,  but  showed  it 
to  Biehardson,  who  disapproved  of  it.  Lloyd  {Penn 
and  Logan  Correspondence,  Vol.  II,  p.  408)  afterwards 
said  that  all  but  three  of  the  seven  members  of  the 
committee  on  minutes  approved,  and  that  five  Assem- 
blymen examined  the  fair  transcript  before  it  was  sent. 
Lloyd  actually  signed  it  when  his  term  as  Speaker  had 
been  ended  by  the  new  election  for  Assemblymen.  He 
enclosed  a  copy  in  a  letter,  dated  8ber  3,  to  three 
prominent  Quakers  in  England,  George  "Whitehead, 
William  Mead,  and  Thomas  Lower,  of  whom  Mead  and 
Lower  were  known  to  be  unfriendly  to  Penn,  request- 
ing them  by  ' '  such  Christian  methods ' '  as  they  should 
see  fit  to  oblige  William  Penn  to  do  the  People  justice. 
There  was  mentioned  as  also  enclosed  a  copy  of  the 
bill  which  the  Assembly  wished  to  pass  in  relation  to 
oaths,  and  the  persons  addressed  were  desired  to  solicit 
the  Queen  in  favor  of  it.  The  letter  said  "I  suppose 
you  will  have  a  more  ample  account  by  others  of  the 
condition  this  poor  province  is  brought  to  by  the  late 
revels  and  disorders  which  young  William  Penn  and  his 
gang  of  loose  fellows  he  accompanies  with  are  found  in, 
to  the  great  grief  of  Friends  and  others  in  this  place." 
The  letter  closed  with  the  request  for  an  endeavor  to  get 

29 


442  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

an  able  lawyer  of  sobriety  and  moderation,  but  not  in 
Penn's  interest,  to  be  commissioned  Chief  Justice  of 
the  Province  and  Lower  Counties  and  also  the  Jerseys ; 
a  position  which  could  be  worth  400  or  500£.  per  annum 
besides  fees  and  perquisites.  The  letter  spoke  of  Mom- 
pesson  as  thought  of  formerly,  but  unable  to  stay,  be- 
sides "too  much  in  William  Penn's  interest,  and  given 
to  drink."  This  letter  with  its  enclosures  was  sent  on 
a  vessel  which  was  captured  by  the  French,  and  all 
were  examined,  and  thrown  upon  the  deck.  A  fellow 
passenger  other  than  the  one  intrusted  with  them, 
gathered  them  up,  and,  with  permission  of  the  French 
officer,  eventually  had  them  put  into  the  hands  of  Penn, 
without  going  to  the  three  Quakers. 

The  election  in  October,  1704,  resulted  in  little 
change  in  the  Assembly,  in  fact  in  the  loss  of  two  or 
three  who  might  have  restrained  the  majority.  At  the 
same  time,  in  Philadelphia  County,  John  Budd  Jr.  and 
Benjamin  Wright  were  chosen  to  be  presented  to  the 
Governor  for  him  to  select  one  as  Sheriff,  that  office 
being  held  by  John  Finney,  appointed  in  August,  1703, 
on  the  resignation  of  Thomas  Farmer.  The  Frame  of 
Government  having  prescribed  for  the  presentation 
every  three  years,  Evans  claimed  that  this  could  not  be 
made  until  1705,  and,  accordingly,  he  allowed  John 
Finney  to  continue  in  office.  Evans  raised  an  inquiry 
as  to  how  the  Assemblymen  were  being  qualified,  but 
the  Council  satisfied  him  that  the  promise  of  fidelity 
prescribed  by  the  law  of  1700  was  sufficient.  He  then 
received  and  addressed  the  Assembly  without  providing 
a  chair  for  the  Speaker,  and  so,  although  he  himself  was 
standing,  gave  affront  to  at  least  Lloyd,  who  had  been 
re-elected  Speaker.  The  House  presented  their  former 
bills  for  confirmation  of  the  Charter,  and  confirming 
property,  and  one,  probably  the  same  as  copied  for 
Whitehead,  to  authorize  affirmations.  The  Assembly- 
men voted,  on  8mo.  27,  to  add  to  the  Remonstrance  the 


The  Anti-Proprietary  Party.  443 

aggrievance  of  persons  by  reason  of  quit  rents  on  the 
lots  in  the  City,  especially  the  bank  lots,  and  to  state 
the  Proprietary's  promise  of  a  gift  of  the  site  of  the 
great  town.  No  agreement  on  any  bill  was  reached 
with  the  Lieutenant-Governor.  He  had  asked  for 
money  to  maintain  the  government  by  his  living  in 
becoming  style,  and  by  the  exigencies  of  state  being 
" prevented  or  timely  answered;"  but  the  Assembly- 
men determined  not  to  give  anything  until  their  privi- 
leges were  confirmed.  Penn  had  endorsed  his  Lieu- 
tenant's stand  on  the  bills  in  debate  during  the  Summer, 
and  one  of  Evans's  messages  said  that  it  was  strange 
that  reasonable  men  could  propose  such  an  injury  to 
the  Proprietary  as  the  bill  of  property,  without  offering 
an  equivalent,  such  as  a  settled  revenue  for  the  support 
of  government,  and  the  defraying  of  public  charges. 
The  Assembly  then  offered  for  that  purpose  1200Z.  and 
an  impost  on  wine,  cider,  &ct.,  on  condition  of  confirma- 
tion of  what  the  members  thought  agreeable  to  the 
Proprietary's  engagement  with  his  People.  This  was 
not  accepted. 

Various  other  matters  had  increased  the  estrange- 
ment. A  ''great  fray,"  too  late  to  be  made  use  of  by 
Lloyd  in  his  letter,  took  place  in  the  city  on  the  night 
of  November  1, 1704.  Jenkins,  in  his  Family  of  William 
Penn,  has  shown  that  this  has  been  confused  with  the 
affair  in  which  William  Penn  Jr.  figured,  the  last  named 
being  on  the  seas  at  this  time.  In  the  catalogue  of 
particulars  prepared  to  accompany  the  Assembly's 
letter  of  4mo.  10,  1707,  is  mentioned  the  Lieutenant- 
Governor's  beating  "Solomon  Cresson,  Constable  of 
this  City,  when  he  was  doing  the  Duty  of  his  Office 
upon  the  Watch  about  two  years  ago,"  and  sending  him 
"to  Prison,  where  he  was  kept  till  the  Afternoon  of  the 
Day  following,  for  no  other  Cause  that  we  can  find, 
but  bidding  a  lewd  Tavern-keeper  disperse  her  Com- 
pany, where  the  Governor  happened  to  be  about  One 


444  Chkonicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

a  Clock  at  Night,  though  the  Constable  knew  not  of  his 
being  there  till  he  called  him  in,  and  began  to  beat 
him."  This  evidently  gives  us  the  starting  of  the 
"great  fray,"  as  it  is  called  in  the  Minutes  of  the 
Governor's  Council.  Evidently  Cresson  sounded  an 
alarm  for  help.  There  came  to  the  scene  the  chief 
officers  of  the  City.  Deborah  Logan  has  quoted  a  tra- 
dition that,  the  lights  being  put  out,  Joseph  Willcox, 
who  was  an  Alderman,  seized  one  of  the  roisterers,  and 
beat  him.  This  happened  to  be  the  Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor, suffering  in  his  turn.  When  Willcox  became 
aware  whom  he  had  hold  of,  he  beat  him  again.  The 
next  day,  the  Attorney-General  formally  complained  to 
the  Governor  and  Council  of  the  abuse  of  some  gentle- 
men by  the  watch,  and  the  support  given  to  the  latter 
by  the  Mayor,  Recorder,  and  an  Alderman,  and  asked 
whether,  as  it  was  impossible  to  try  them  in  the  Mayor's 
Court,  a  trial  in  another  court  should  be  ordered.  On 
examination  of  the  Mayor,  Recorder,  and  Alderman 
Willcox,  it  was  wisely  decided  that  they  had  been  in 
no  way  concerned  in  the  disturbance,  except  to  quell 
it. 

Evans  demanded  from  this  Assembly  a  copy  of  the 
Remonstrance  sent  in  the  name  of  the  preceding  one, 
and,  the  members  disliking  Lloyd's  using  the  word 
"treachery"  and  some  other  harsh  expressions,  word 
was  sent  to  the  bearer  of  a  copy,  who  was  supposed  to 
be  still  at  New  York,  to  bring  it  back  for  further  con- 
sideration, but  he  had  sailed.  Logan  says  that  this  As- 
sembly, which  declined  Evans's  demand  for  a  copy,  re- 
fused to  adopt  the  document  as  its  own,  in  spite  of 
Lloyd's  wily  suggestion  that  such  adoption  would  make 
it  proper  to  furnish  the  copy.  The  statement  that  the 
Assembly  "disowned  the  Remonstrance"  is  true  only 
as  to  some  of  its  strong  language.  An  address  of  3rd 
month  contained  the  following  very  careful  expression : 
"Our  part  is  to  lament  (as  we  really  do)  that  there 


The  Anti-Proprietary  Party.  445 

should  be  true  occasion  for  such  representation,  or,  if 
none,  that  it  should  be  offered  our  Proprietary. ' '  There 
was,  to  be  sure,  added,  without  really  weakening  the 
effect, ' '  whom  we  both  love  and  honour. ' '  The  address, 
which  was  the  one  making  the  conditional  offer  of  money 
last  mentioned,  plainly  declared  Penn's  services  to  the 
colony  overpaid,  if  he  had  failed  to  secure  the  royal 
approbation  for  the  beneficial  laws,  he  having  promised 
to  do  so,  and  having  promised  to  make  good  terms  for 
the  People  upon  a  surrender  of  the  government,  and 
having  had  2000?.  voted  to  him.  Assurance  was  given, 
rather  insultingly,  that  if  said  sum  was  insufficient  to 
negotiate  this,  so  that,  as  had  been  mentioned,  he  felt 
that  he  should  not  be  at  the  expense  of  a  large  fee  to  the 
Attorney-General,  what  was  right  would  be  done  by 
the  House  upon  receipt  of  an  itemized  statement  of 
disbursements.  Based  on  the  idea  that  the  quit  rents 
of  Is.  per  100  acres  had  been  agreed  to  in  view  of  the 
Proprietary's  extraordinary  expenses  in  being  Gover- 
nor, there  was  a  complaint  that  it  would  be  hard,  if  the 
purchasers,  as  the  Proprietary  was  understood  to  ex- 
pect, must  pay  Thomas  Lloyd's  salary  as  Governor  in 
Penn's  absence,  which  absence  was  for  the  service  of 
England,  and  not  of  the  Province,  while  the  business 
which  took  him  home  in  1684,  the  boundary  dispute, 
was  still  unsettled,  to  the  great  discouragement  of  both 
Province  and  Lower  Counties. 

In  protest  against  the  disposition  and  conduct  of  the 
preceding  and  the  sitting  Assembly,  a  letter  to  Penn 
was  prepared  about  3,  23, 1705,  and  signed,  says  Logan, 
by  "almost  all  the  profession"  (meaning  Quakers),  de- 
claring abhorrence  of  the  Eemonstrance,  and  willing- 
ness to  bear  all  the  expense  of  the  government,  but, 
however,  itself  mentioning  a  number  of  things  which 
the  signers  thought  honestly  their  due. 

Old  William  Biles,  who  was  now  an  Assemblyman 
from  Bucks,  was  reported  to  have   spoken   thus   of 


446  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Evans :  ' '  He  is  but  a  boy ;  he  is  not  fit  to  be  our  Gov- 
ernor. We'll  kick  him  out;  we'll  kick  him  out."  For 
these  words,  which  he  denied  using,  but  which  doubtless 
expressed  an  opinion  and  wish  common  among  most  of 
the  Quakers,  Evans  sued  Biles  for  2000?.  damages,  hav- 
ing the  writ  served  on  him  the  evening  that  the  House 
adjourned  for  three  weeks.  Before  the  County  Court, 
composed  of  Evans's  friends,  Guest,  Samuel  Finney, 
Pidgeon,  and  Edward  Farmer,  Lloyd,  as  counsel  for 
Biles,  pleaded  the  privileges  of  an  Assemblyman.  The 
Court  overruled  this,  ordered  the  defendant  to  plead 
over,  and,  on  his  refusal,  would  not  grant  an  impar- 
lance, but  gave  judgment  against  him.  A  jury  assessed 
damages  at  3001.  Evans,  on  June  20,  sent  a  message 
to  the  reconvened  Assembly,  demanding  the  expulsion 
of  Biles  forthwith.  The  Assembly  replied,  that,  as  the 
words  were  not  alleged  to  have  been  spoken  in  the 
House,  it  could  not  examine  into  the  fact  whether  they 
had  been  spoken  or  not,  that  such  words,  the  House  had 
no  intention  to  justify,  but  that  the  Sheriff,  in  summon- 
ing a  member  the  very  day  he  was  attending  the  As- 
sembly, and  the  Justices,  by  their  action,  had  committed 
a  breach  of  privilege:  the  Governor  was  begged  to 
allow  Biles  to  wait  upon  him,  and,  wherein  he  found 
Biles  faulty,  to  accept  a  submission,  which  the  House 
unanimously  directed  should  be  made.  Evans,  infuri- 
ated, dismissed  the  Assembly. 

Penn  thought  the  arrest  of  Biles  legal,  and  had 
strong  feeling  against  him  as  a  leading  opponent  in 
Bucks  County,  and  Penn  also,  even  before  he  knew  the 
phraseology  of  the  Remonstrance,  was  so  incensed  at 
the  want  of  consideration  shown  him  by  Lloyd  and  other 
Quakers  that  he  desired,  by  selling  the  government, 
to  leave  them  in  the  lurch,  being  convinced  that  the 
Queen  would  annul  the  privileges  which  his  charters 
gave.  He  felt  that  he  could  get  more  justice  from  his 
enemies  than  from  the  leaders  of  his  co-religionists, 


The  Anti-Proprietary  Party.  447 

for  whom  he  had  been  fighting:  and,  in  fact,  Quary 
and  Moore,  of  the  Church  party  in  the  Province,  had 
been  friendly  with  his  son,  and  would  incline  to  the 
Proprietary  rather  than  the  opposite  interest.  Penn 
and  Quary  came  into  such  harmony  that  the  former  in 
1705  or  1706  submitted  to  his  friends  in  Pennsylvania 
the  question  of  admitting  Quary  to  the  Governor's 
Council,  but  this  was  not  done.  In  1707,  Logan,  man- 
aging for  Penn,  leased  Pennsbury  to  Quary  for  seven 
years. 

About  the  first  of  the  year  1705,  Penn  laid  before  the 
Commissioners  for  Trade  and  Plantations  a  draft  of 
an  instrument  of  surrender  and  the  conditions  on  which 
it  was  to  be  made. 

The  promise  in  the  treaty  of  April  30,  1701,  men- 
tioned in  the  chapter  on  the  Red  Neighbours,  that  the 
Pennsylvania  government  would  befriend  the  Gana- 
wese  and  Shawnees,  as  well  as  the  other  Indians,  was 
well  observed  in  comforting  them  in  times  of  appre- 
hension, and  in  sending  messengers  or  speaking  in 
treaties  to  conciliate  the  Five  Nations,  who  were  often 
reported  to  be  preparing  attacks  upon  the  Pennsylvania 
Indians,  and  furthermore  by  Pennsylvania  exerting  in- 
fluence upon  adjacent  governments  to  restrain  their 
red  men  and  their  white  men.  The  Ganawese,  after 
an  attack  on  a  party  of  them  by  Virginians  and  the  loss 
of  a  man,  were  allowed  in  1705  to  remove  to  the  Tulpe- 
hocken  region,  and  dwell  with  the  Delawares  there, 
Menangy,  the  leader  of  the  Delawares  of  those  parts, 
making  the  request  to  the  provincial  government  for 
the  permission:  but  a  number  continued  to  reside  at 
Connejaghera,  or  Conejohela,  their  location  being  later 
described  as  ''above  the  fort" — Qu.  the  old  Susque- 
hanna Fort  at  the  Falls? — and  also  as  "several  miles 
above  Conestoga."  These  Ganawese  were  sometimes 
called  Conewages,  apparently  after  the  name  of  the 


448  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

Creek  at  the  Falls,  but  the  name  of  Conoy  Town  was 
the  usual  one  for  the  village. 

The  Fords,  after  the  stating  of  the  account  with 
Perm  as  to  what  was  owing  on  April  1,  1702,  as  men- 
tioned in  the  last  chapter,  were  disposed  to  give  Penn 
time  to  redeem  the  land  of  Pennsylvania  and  the  Lower 
Counties,  and  postponed  the  probate  of  the  elder  Ford's 
will,  in  expectation  of  the  family  being  provided  for  by 
the  sums  promised  to  be  paid.  Perhaps  Bridget  Ford 
had  more  conscience  than  she  has  been  credited  with 
about  calling  the  original  transaction  an  absolute  sale. 
Probably  her  advisers  thought  that  nobody  at  the  time 
would  give  any  more  for  the  property  than  the  re- 
demption price :  and  the  widow  and  three  children  were 
not  rich  enough  to  hold  that  amount  of  capital  in  un- 
productive property  to  await  future  profit:  otherwise, 
we,  looking  back  from  a  time  when  the  region  has  long 
been  so  valuable,  must  think  both  Penn  and  the  Fords 
blind  to  their  respective  interests  in  not  quickly  effect- 
ing a  compromise  by  the  allotment  of  land  at  Penn's 
standard  price  in  satisfaction  of  the  amount  of  the  Ford 
claim.  As  Penn  looked  over  the  accounts  carefully,  he 
became  convinced  that  he  had  been  cheated  in  the 
method  of  computing  the  debt,  even  that  payments 
made  by  him  or  for  him  to  Philip  Ford  had  not  been 
entered.  So  Penn  offered,  if  the  whole  account  were 
reopened  before  Quaker  arbitrators  mutually  chosen, 
to  pay  down  one  half  of  what  they  found  due,  and  give 
security  for  the  payment  of  the  other  half.  This  the 
Fords  refused.  They  determined,  probably  for  forcing 
a  speedy  payment  in  full,  to  assert  their  rights  accord- 
ing to  the  face  of  the  papers,  and  so  brought  a  bill  in 
Chancery  in  England  to  have  the  agreement  to  resell 
to  Penn  cleared  away,  and  the  trusts  in  Philip  Ford's 
will  carried  out.  The  family,  moreover,  executed  a 
power  of  attorney,  dated  January  24.  1704-5,  to  David 
Lloyd,  Isaac  Norris,  and  John  Moore  to  take  possession 


The  Anti-Proprietary  Party.  449 

of  Pennsylvania  and  the  Territories,  and  notified  those 
attorneys  in  a  letter  of  lmo.  29,  1705  by  which  time 
about  four  years'  interest  was  said  to  be  due,  that  the 
lease  of  Pennsylvania  and  Territories  made  to  William 
Penn  having  expired,  the  latter  was  only  tenant  at  will, 
and  the  attorneys  were  to  warn  the  holders  of  land  not 
to  pay  to  Penn's  agents  any  quit  rents.  Even  then 
the  Fords  were  not  anxious  to  take  the  property,  and 
Lloyd  and  Moore,  as  well  as  Norris,  showed  patience 
and  consideration :  but  the  instructions  sounded  like  the 
death  knell  of  Penn's  authority,  or  perhaps  rather  the 
funeral  tolling  over  all  government  commissioned  by 
him  at  least  since  the  expiration  of  the  lease. 

This  letter  of  attorney  and  the  instructions  arrived 
about  5mo.  10, 1705.    They  appear  to  have  caused  some 
change  in  the  feelings  of  the  voters,  or  else  it  was  an 
ordinary  instance  of  reaction,  that  a  great  effort  of  the 
Proprietary's  friends  was  successful  in  carrying  the 
ensuing  election  for  Assemblymen.    Shippen,  Carpen- 
ter, Pusey,  and  Hill,  with  Norris,  whose  sympathies 
were  on  that  side,  took  the  seats  recently  held  by  ene- 
mies or  those  acting  as  such.    David  Lloyd  was  rejected 
by  the  ballot  of  the  County  of  Philadelphia,  but,  how- 
ever, was   one   of  the  two   chosen  to   represent  the 
People  of  the  city.    Growdon,  his  father-in-law,  who 
had  differed  with  him  politically  for  some  time,  was  one 
of  the  friendly,  as   against  three  or  four  "scabbed 
sheep,"  as  Logan  calls  them,  from  Bucks.    The  result 
in   Chester   County  had  been  thoroughly  controlled. 
Growdon  was  made  Speaker. 

Much  legislation  resulted  from  this  harmony  with 
the  executive  branch.  The  Attorney-General  of  Eng- 
land had,  on  Oct.  13,  1704,  reported  to  the  Board  of 
Trade,  objections  to  thirty  of  the  laws  of  1700  and  1701, 
and  observations  on  another,  viz:  that  for  taking  lands 
in  execution.  Penn,  to  enable  the  Province  to  save  time 
by  making  new  laws  on  the  various  subjects,  obtained 


450  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

and  sent  over  a  copy  of  this  report,  and  possibly  also 
suggested  alterations  in  other  laws  which  he  knew  would 
be  opposed  by  the  Commissioners  for  Trade  and  Navi- 
gation. The  Province  acted  in  nearly  every  case,  and 
nearly  every  substituted  law  was  allowed  by  the  Crown. 
Some  of  the  laws  are  in  force  to-day,  for  instance  that 
for  Defalcation,  or  set-off  against  a  plaintiff's  demand, 
and  that  for  Taking  Land  in  Execution,  allowing  a  jury 
to  declare  the  rents  for  seven  years  insufficient  to  pay 
the  debt,  and  in  that  case  having  the  Sheriff  make  sale 
under  a  writ  called  by  its  Latin  words  Venditioni  expo- 
nas, and  furthermore  providing  that  mortgages  be  sued 
out  by  the  writ  called  Scire  facias  and  the  premises 
sold  under  a  writ  called  Levari,  a  great  advance  upon 
the  proceedings  in  chancery  for  foreclosure,  as  clung 
to  in  other  parts  of  the  United  States. 

Some  of  the  changes  made  were  little  more  than 
formal;  others  were  quite  radical.  A  table  of  con- 
sanguinity and  affinity  was  set  forth  within  which 
marriages  should  be  void,  but  the  Assembly  made  a 
departure  from  English  law  in  not  including  a  deceased 
wife's  sister  in  the  table.  Milder  punishments  for 
some  crimes  were  substituted  for  the  bloody  ones  which 
the  Quakers  had  recently  prescribed.  Doubtless  much 
to  Penn's  disappointment,  but  as  a  necessary  compli- 
ance with  the  sentiment  of  British  officials,  the  law 
concerning  liberty  of  conscience  was  so  changed  as  to 
protect  only  those  who  professed  faith  in  the  Trinity, 
and  acknowledged  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures. 

A  compromise  between  the  Anglican  and  Quaker 
f riends  of  Penn  was  attempted  in  an  act  for  the  quali- 
fication of  magistrates  and  manner  of  giving  evidence. 
It  allowed  Councillors,  Assemblymen,  Commissioners, 
Justices,  Clerks,  Sheriffs,  and  other  officers  to  qualify 
by  affirmation  when  conscientiously  unable  to  take  an 
oath,  but  required  them  to  subscribe  the  declarations 
and  professions  of  faith  according  to  the  Act  of  Parlia- 


The  Anti-Peopeietaey  Paety.  451 

merit  of  1  W.  &  M.  for  relieving  Dissenters  who 
scrupled  at  taking  an  oath.  As  regarded  the  compe- 
tency of  unsworn  persons  to  testify  in  court,  provision 
was  necessary,  owing  to  the  Queen's  repeal  of  the  Act 
passed  at  New  Castle  in  1700,  and  re-enacted  in  1701, 
allowing  witnesses  to  give  evidence  by  "solemnly  prom- 
ising" to  speak  the  truth.  To  guard  against  what 
would  be  practically,  but  not  etymologically,  perjury, 
such  act  had  ordered  that  a  person  convicted  of  wilful 
falsehood  was  to  suffer  the  punishment  which  the  one 
against  whom  the  false  testimony  was  given  "did  or 
should  undergo."  This  the  Attorney-General  objected 
to,  construing  it  to  mean  that  a  person  bearing  false 
witness  against  any  one  in  a  trial  for  felony  was  to  be 
hung,  even  although  the  person  tried  were  acquitted. 
The  omission  of  religious  words  in  the  affirmation  was 
not  animadverted  upon  by  the  Attorney-General ;  never- 
theless, as  Evans's  political  influence  in  England  was 
through  the  Church,  the  members  of  the  Assembly,  who 
except  Griffith  Jones,  "not  in  unity  with  Friends,"  and 
Growdon,  not  in  regular  standing,  and  except  John 
Swift,  were  all  Quakers,  were  constrained  by  Evans  to 
prescribe,  in  the  new  act  aforesaid  for  qualifications 
and  giving  evidence,  that  the  affirmant  answer  yes  or 
yea  to  the  strange  expression  in  the  English  act,  ob- 
jected to  by  radical  Quakers  some  years  before  as  par- 
taking of  the  nature  of  an  oath,  viz:  "Dost  thou  de- 
clare or  thou  shalt  declare  (English  act  says  "I  do 
declare")  in  the  presence  of  Almighty  God,  the  witness 
of  the  truth  of  what  thou  sayest"  (English  act,  "of 
what  I  say").  However,  consideration  was  given  to 
the  consciences  of  Quaker  Judges,  such  Judges  being 
allowed  to  make  non-Quakers  affirm,  if  there  were  no 
one  on  the  bench  free  to  administer  an  oath,  and  more- 
over the  administration  of  an  oath,  when  there  were 
Judges  who  scrupled  at  administering  one,  being  de- 
clared the  act  of  the  person  administering  it,  and  not 


452  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

of  the  whole  bench.  Evans  was  afraid  to  pass  this,  and 
only  did  so  upon  the  insertion  of  a  proviso  that  the  act 
should  not  go  into  force  until  the  20th  of  September. 
Furthermore,  he  notified  the  Board  of  Trade  by  letter 
of  Jany.  19,  1705-6,  so  as  to  have  a  decision  reached, 
if  possible,  before  the  act  should  go  into  force.  At- 
torney-General Northey,  to  whom  the  Board  referred 
the  act,  saw  the  desirableness  of  so  securing  service 
and  testimony  for  the  courts  in  a  Quaker  colony,  but 
objected  to  a  provision  of  the  same  act  admitting  the 
written  deposition  of  a  sick  or  removing  person  to  be 
evidence  in  all  cases  criminal  as  well  as  civil.  Mean- 
while, Samuel  Finney  and  others,  we  are  told  by  Penn, 
employed  an  attorney  in  England  to  oppose  the  act 
before  the  Commissioners  for  Trade.  This  attorney, 
who  was  George  Willcocks,  pointed  out,  among  other 
objections,  that  the  form  of  affirmation  was  not  an  ex- 
press declaration  that  the  party  says  the  truth.  The 
Commissioners  agreed  to  recommend  disallowance,  un- 
less Penn  gave  assurance  that  the  Assembly  would 
enact  by  an  additional  law  that  no  Judges  could  sit, 
unless  there  were  one  who  could  administer  an  oath, 
and  that  all  who  refused  to  take  oaths  be  obliged  to 
declare  their  refusal  to  be  for  conscientious  scruple, 
and  that  only  in  civil  cases  should  the  written  deposi- 
tion be  accepted  as  evidence.  Of  course,  Penn  could 
give  no  assurance  of  the  action  of  any  Assembly,  but 
only  that  his  Lieutenant  could  take  care  by  appointing 
enough  Churchmen  that  rarely  would  a  case  be  tried 
before  Quakers  alone.  The  act  was  disallowed  by  the 
Queen  on  Jany.  8,  1707-8.  Thus  fell,  after  a  short  life, 
about  the  only  Quaker  provision  made  by  the  Assembly- 
men chosen  in  1705. 

That  the  Indians  should  neither  have  grievances,  nor 
hear  rumors  inciting  them  to  rise  against  the  colonists, 
an  act,  drawn  up  by  Logan,  and  to  remain  in  force  for 
three  years,  was  passed,  and,  moreover,  was  not  re- 


The  Anti-Proprietary  Party.  453 

pealed  in  England.  Under  its  terms,  any  person  kill- 
ing, wounding,  beating,  or  abusing  an  Indian  was  made 
subject  to  the  same  punishment  as  if  the  injury  were 
done  to  a  natural  born  subject  of  England,  and  was  to 
be  fined  in  addition ;  a  person  spreading  stories  which 
might  alienate  the  mind  of  the  Indians  was,  on  convic- 
tion by  either  Christian  or  Indian  evidence,  to  be  heav- 
ily fined,  and  to  be  imprisoned,  and  to  give  security 
for  good  behavior ;  fifty  pounds  a  year  were  allowed  for 
necessary  treaties  and  messages  ordered  by  the  Gov- 
ernor and  Council ;  no  one  for  trading  with  the  Indians 
was  to  go  into  the  woods  or  from  his  plantation  except 
to  an  English  market  town  or  place,  unless  to  buy 
corn,  venison,  provisions,  or  skins  for  clothing  himself 
or  family,  without  a  license  from  the  Governor  by  order 
of  the  Governor  and  Council,  good  for  one  year,  which 
license  was  to  be  granted  to  any  natural  born  subject 
of  the  Crown  upon  his  giving  security  to  trade  honestly, 
and  observe  the  rules  and  orders  made  by  the  Governor 
and  Council  for  regulating  the  trade;  all  skins,  furs, 
and  other  commodities  bought  of  the  Indians  by  such 
traders  were  to  be  sold  within  the  province. 

The  majority  of  those  Assemblymen  being  in  the 
humor  to  do  whatever  was  for  the  Proprietary's 
interest,  acts  were  passed  for  enforcing  the  payment 
of  his  quit  rents,  for  collecting  the  arrears  of  the  2000?. 
voted  to  him  in  1700,  and  for  providing  for  the  Lieu- 
tenant-Governor, as  well  as  paying  debts  and  applica- 
tion to  such  other  purposes  as  the  Governor  and 
Assembly  might  appoint.  This  last  mentioned  act 
levied  a  tax  of  2\d.  per  I.  on  all  estates  over  30Z.  exclu- 
sive of  household  goods  and  implements  of  use,  and  105. 
per  head  on  all  freemen  over  twenty-one  who  had  been 
six  months  clear  of  apprenticeship,  and  were  not  worth 
30/.,  also  an  impost  for  three  years  on  certain  liquors 
imported,  and  on  butter  and  cheese,  except  when  from 
Delaware,  New  Jersey,  England,  or  Ireland,  and  on 


454  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

negro  slaves  and  servants,  except  when  brought  from 
Delaware  or  New  Jersey. 

Some  changes  in  the  constitution  of  the  government 
were  made  by  this  Assembly.  One  was  in  the  direction 
of  democracy.  The  Sheriffs  and  Coroners  were  to  be 
selected  as  before,  but  were  to  serve  only  one  year, 
and  their  bonds  were  to  be  taken  in  the  Queen's  name, 
and  to  be  for  the  use  of  those  injured  by  the  acts  of 
those  officials.  On  the  other  hand,  majority  rule  might 
cease  under  the  Act  for  Ascertaining  the  Number  of 
Assemblymen,  and  Regulating  their  Election:  they 
were  to  be  chosen  by  plurality  vote;  an  arrangement 
which,  whether  intended  so  or  not,  enabled  a  well  organ- 
ized minority,  such  as  the  Proprietary's  friends  could 
have  expected  to  command,  to  seize  this  refuge  of  popu- 
lar government,  or,  rather,  of  the  qualified  voters'  gov- 
ernment. Only  by  the  determined  rallying  of  a  major- 
ity around  those  whom  they  trusted,  could  this  be  pre- 
vented. 

The  Quakers,  except  a  few  individuals,  had  now  fallen 
politically  into  a  situation  as  unpleasant  as  that  of  the 
Churchmen  a  short  time  before,  and  more  particularly 
the  rural,  plainer,  more  radical  families,  who  might  be 
called  the  co-adventurers  with  Penn.  Their  expecta- 
tions, whether  reasonable  or  not,  of  an  easy,  popularly 
controlled,  and  cheap  government  had  been  disap- 
pointed. Penn,  of  whose  influence  they  had  an  exag- 
gerated idea,  had  failed  to  abolish  oaths  permanently, 
to  secure  an  exemption  from  tribute  on  the  occasion  of 
war,  and  to  free  the  disposal  of  the  crops  and  the  ob- 
taining of  necessaries  from  jeopardy  and  frequent  loss 
under  Parliament's  policy  and  Admiralty's  adminis- 
tration. There  were  doubtless  some  individuals  who 
were  interfered  with  by  the  religious  qualification  just 
established,  and  there  were  more  who  disliked  it. 
There  was  a  disappointment  throughout  the  Society  of 
Friends  at  Evans's  putting  off  the  approval  of  a  law 


The  Anti-Proprietary  Party.  455 

empowering  religious  societies  to  receive  and  dispose 
of  lands  for  their  necessary  uses,  it  being  doubted 
whether,  without  such  law,  a  Quaker  Meeting  could 
legally  claim  any  real  estate  for  a  meeting-house  or 
burial  ground.  As,  in  England,  land  granted  for  pious 
uses  could  not  be  alienated,  the  Vestry  of  Christ  Church 
was  asked  whether  it  was  willing  to  accept  the  power 
to  do  so,  and  the  Vestry  expressed  objections  to  the 
bill;  so  that  Evans  feared  that  consenting  to  it  might 
offend  "the  Bishop"  (probably  the  Bishop  of  London, 
in  charge  of  the  Church  in  America,  but  possibly  the 
aforesaid  Bishop  of  Bangor).  There  were  doubtless  a 
number  of  landholders,  non-Quakers  as  well  as  Quakers, 
frightened  about  their  own  possessions  by  the  repeal 
of  the  old  law  about  property,  and  the  submission  to 
William  Penn,  across  the  seas,  of  a  new  bill  for  con- 
firming grants  and  patents.  As  to  the  chance  of  gov- 
erning themselves,  most  of  those  pioneers  or  their  sons 
who  would  have  liked  to  participate  in  affairs,  could 
feel  themselves  crowded  out,  except  as  to  the  Shrievalty 
or  Coronership  or  membership  of  the  Assembly:  the 
Council  contained  men  who  had  come  since  the  summer 
of  1699,  one  member,  George  Roche  of  Antigua,  having 
been  appointed  within  about  a  year  after  his  arrival, 
without  there  being  excuse,  as  in  the  case  of  Mompesson 
and  young  Penn.  With  the  increasing  number  of 
Churchmen  in  office,  the  Quakers  among  the  Governor's 
advisers  and  most  of  those  chosen  to  the  Assembly  in 
1705,  might  be  said  to  be  "Pennites"  first,  and  Quakers 
afterwards.  Penn  had  received,  or  was  collecting, 
under  appropriations,  considerable  sums  of  money  not 
convenient  for  the  inhabitants  to  pay,  and  now  all  were 
being  called  upon  to  maintain  in  style  above  the  sump- 
tuary ideas  of  the  Quakers  Penn's  personal  representa- 
tive as  Governor,  who  had  nothing  in  common  with  the 
earnest  Quakers,  whom  they  could  neither  respect  like 
Blackwell,  nor  feel  as  a  neighbour  towards  like  Mark- 


456  Chronicles  of  Pennsylvania. 

ham,  nor  even  make  a  bargain  with  like  Fletcher.  Too 
faithful  to  Penn  to  abate  any  of  his  prerogative,  Evans 
was  so  obedient  to  the  Queen  as  to  interfere  with  the 
enforcement  of  law  and  order :  and  Penn  was  not  show- 
ing himself  a  Roman  parent  as  to  the  behavior  of  his 
son,  but  resenting  as  a  piece  of  spite  the  noticing  of  it. 
The  Quakers  were  losing  one  by  one  the  benefits  derived 
from  a  seigniory  in  the  hands  of  one  of  their  persuasion 
interposed  between  them  and  the  Crown :  the  seigniory 
was  likely  soon  to  be  surrendered ;  but  if  it  should  not 
be,  but  descend  to  William  Perm's  heir,  then  if  the  heir, 
who  had  been  displeased  with  the  Pennsylvanians, 
should  forsake  the  Society  of  Friends,  would  any  benefit 
remain  ? 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 
Goleta,  California 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW, 


20m-3,'59(A552s4)476 


****s 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


AA    000  876  395    5 


